.M^ 







ii 



liili 




Class ^TSjSAL 

Book^ _-_Ai— 

Coi)yiight]^"_: m^. 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



I 




THE PROFESSOR 

AT 

THE BREAKFAST -TABLE 

WITH THE 

STORY OF IRIS 

BY 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
BY 

RICHARD BURTON 

' o ■» o o 



> O O 3 O 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

PUBLISHERS 






•\<\0 



1- 



THE LiBf?AftY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two CoPlfeo RjtCSIVED 

NOV, li ]m9 

n> /-^RCv.yyr ^'o. 






Copyright, 1902, 
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The Professor at the Breakfast Table appeared in 
the Atlantic Monthly in 1859, two years after the 
Autocrat Iiad made'^liis brilliant bow in the pages of 
the same perio(Jij:al. Few are the writers who can 
withstand what they interpret as a public appeal to 
then^ for more work of a kind already approved. 
Sequels to our Prisoners of Zenda of yesterday or 
to-day seem well-nigh inevitable. Fewer still justify 
this repetition, — and for reasons not far to seek. In 
the first instance," the author had something to say; 
in the second, he is hampered by having to say some- 
thing. There is danger that the difference may be 
that between inspiration and mechanism. 

Yet this yielding to the demand of readers is not 
of necessity mercenary ; sometimes it is happily justi- 
fied in the event. When an author is of the right 
sort, the very knowledge that a wide circle of well- 
wishers is a-clamor for more, is like a cordial at his 
heart, and, not mechanically, with no thought of mate- 
rial rewards, he pours himself out upon paper with a 
genuine gusto of creative pleasure. Thus, Ik Mar- 
vel, writing his Reveries of a Bachelor^ followed it 
up the next year with Dream Children^ to the fur- 
ther enrichment of American letters. And thus Dr. 
Holmes let his Professor follow hard on the Autocrat 



iv INTRODUCTION. 

who had dispensed a genial wisdom to the Atlantic 
readers. The first of the Breakfast Table series was 
a contribution which helped to make memorable the 
early history of the Atlantic Monthly, for nothing did 
more for its circulation or prestige. Lowell had made 
Holmes^s assistance a condition of the former's accept- 
ance of the post of editor, and the result in this case 
happily illustrates the fact that, cynics to the contrary, 
a magazine editor — if he but be a Lowell ! — is now 
and then perceptive in discovering a valuable author. 
It was natural, therefore, for more reasons than one, 
that Dr. Holmes, who by the famous opening series 
of essays had established a reputation as an essayist 
which he had not possessed before, should have con- 
tinued in the same vein with 'Cii€*Professor at the 
Breakfast Table. That inimitable causerie the Auto- 
crat, in truth, marks his passage from a local to a 
national fame. Hitherto, and up to middle life, litera- 
ture had been with him a minor thing, an aside ; from 
this forward, it was to become his chief business, and 
he was to take his place among the American writers 
of general significance. Nothing quite like the Auto- 
crat had before appeared in American literature. The 
social essay, the confidjsntial talk between author and 
reader, easy, vernacular, yet well bred and elegant, 
wise without heaviness, light and sparkling with noth- 
ing of the trifling or petty, full of pregnant thought 
never didactically conveyed, and of a form so charm- 
ing that instruction is lost in pleasure, — these quali- 
ties, amply illustrated in Dr. Holmes's essay work as 
we have it now in half a dozen books, was first dis- 



INTR OD UC TION. V 

played in full length in the Autocrat. The rich 
humanity of the chapters, the happy kit-kats of the 
folk who gathered around the boarding-house table, 
— itself a clever framework enabling the writer to 
talk in a wider gamut than would have been possible 
had he always spoken in proper person ; the frequent 
intercolations of verse, much of it destined to take a 
permanent place in the American Anthology, — the 
many palpable hits upon foibles or follies of the day, 
the gentle satire which was veiled in such kindly 
humor as to remove all sting — the first of these three 
essay series brought all this to a host of readers and 
definitely made Holmes's reputation as an essay writer. 
It is worthy of note, in passing, that Dr. Holmes 
again and again in naming his book, registers, per- 
haps unconsciously, his marked social instinct ; a 
sense of man's social solidarity : witness the old-age 
chronicle Over the Tea-cups^ where the image recurs. 
How true it is that the Mahogany is in the history of 
civilization a cheery symbol for one of humanity's 
most winsome traits, — the desire to surround with 
companionable good cheer the elemental need for 
food ! Animals only prefer to eat alone. In a broad 
sense the Professor carried on under the same attrac- 
tive gastronomic guise the social talk of the Autocrat, 
yet a difference may be easily felt. Here again, as in 
its predecessor, the essayist to the manner born speaks 
with all his wonted naturalness. Dr. Holmes was a 
brilliant talker at the famed Saturday Club ; here in 
these pages, so far as atmosphere and temper go, he 
puts the Saturday Club on paper. 



vi INTRODUCTION. 

The distinction between the Autocrat and the Pro- 
fessor is hardly that implied in the two names. The 
Professor, to be sure, is ostensibly of the medical 
craft — a sort of hypostasis of Holmes himself; much 
of his talk shows this special knowledge, even point 
of view. Yet in the main he is, like his prototype, a 
cultured, broad-minded man of the world social and 
the world intellectual, talking about Hfe in terms of 
humanity. The observational coign of vantage in 
each case is that of a man more interested in ideas 
and in his fellowmen, than in his own occupation. 
In fact, a crowning characteristic of this whole essay- 
trilogy is found in the attitude of the writer; he is an 
intellectual free lance, with never a suspicion of prej- 
udice or parti pris. This remacJc applies almost 
equally well to the last book of the group, The Poet 
at the Breakfast Table, where the spirit is a little less 
spontaneous, — although, perhaps, our knowledge ol 
what has gone before disqualifies us for an absolutely 
fair judgment. 

Nor is there a noticeable change in the dramatic 
quality of the Professor compared with the Autocrat. 
The story frame is slight in both performances, as I 
have implied ; hardly more than a device to secure for 
the monoldgist a greater freedom, — a freedom we are 
delighted to grant the true essayist. It may be said, 
however, that there is scarcely to be found in the first 
of the famous series, so sympathetic and vivid a char- 
acter group as that in the Professor composed of the 
Little Gentleman, Iris, and her lover. Such charac- 
terization prepares one for the best figure-work in 



INTRODUCTION. vil 

Elsie Venner a little later. Pathos and humor on a 
groundwork of ruddy human interest have never been 
more happily conveyed by an American writer. One 
has to go to Curtis' Priie and /, or to an occasional 
page in Dr. MitchelPs Reveries of a Bachelor for any- 
thing like a parallel. 

Yet despite these variations on the one theme played 
by Dr. Holmes in his Atlantic essays, the thoughtful 
reader will be most struck in the Professor by his 
more serious purpose, in the frankly fearless discus- 
sions of moot questions of the day, questions social, 
political, philosophical, scientific, religious, — this last 
with a special stress. It is as if, having won a wide 
audience at last (in 1859 Dr. Holmes was fifty years 
of age, he had waited till flill maturity for general 
recognition), this author now felt himself free to utter 
his thought, to express his deeper convictions, mak- 
ing less use of that keen stiletto of wit, which is the 
humorist's light but most serviceable weapon for 
thrust and parry; in sooth, more serviceable often 
than the truncheon of the heavier philosopher. This 
more pronounced accent, this deeper note, are appar- 
ent enough in the Professor, and possibly they make 
the book less delightful to some. More of intellec- 
tual stimulation is the compensation. The Professor 
is a true emancipator from prejudice in the middle 
of the nineteenth century. His work, in Matthew 
Arnold's phrase, is of the centre ; he moves and has 
his being in the higher current of ideas, — although 
constantly he returns to mother earth, there win- 
somely to express his interest in particular human 



viii INTRODUCTION. 

beings — the vulgar Kohlnoor, the aggravating theo- 
logical student, even that awful landlady's daughter 
with her cheap ornaments and her cheaper loves. 

This boldness, spelling radicalism in its day, though 
now it seems a mild enough attack on the social 
windmills, aroused due measure of opposition in Dr. 
Holmes's day. There is ample testimony to the fact. 
Mr. Scudder in his biography of Lowell speaks of 
the Professor at the Breakfast Table, "in which this 
writer, who had leaped into popularity through the 
Autocrat, dehvered himself of opinions and judg- 
ments which were regarded by a good many as dan- 
gerous, subversive, — all the more dangerous by reason 
of their wit and entertaining qualities. If one could 
believe many of the newspapers, Dr< Holmes was a 
sort of reincarnation of Voltaire, who stood for the 
most audacious enemy of Christianity in modern 
times." The doctor himself was sufBciently aware 
of the nature of his screed and of its reception. In 
the Preface of 1882 he declares that "the new pa- 
pers" [the Professor series] "were more aggressive 
than the earlier ones, and for that reason found a 
heartier welcome in some quarters, and met with a 
sharper antagonism in others. It amuses me to look 
back upon some of tHe attacks they called forth. 
Opinions which do not now excite the faintest show 
of temper at this time from those who do not accept 
them, are treated as if they were the utterances of a 
nihilist incendiary. It required the exercise of some 
forbearance not to recriminate." All the more marked 
is the change at present, twenty years after this preface 



INTR OD UC TION. ix 

was penned. This puts us on the thought that Dr. 
Holmes was in this respect one of our representative 
American authors ; it was impossible for him not to 
have ethical predispositions. The suggestion of per- 
secution, too, is a reminder how true it is that our 
elder authors as a group had the courage of their con- 
victions, and were made aware of the discomforts 
attendant upon a stanch declaration of principle. 
Full of flavor, too, for the present-day reader is what 
may be called the New England, not to say the Bos- 
ton, point of view of the essayist, which flirnishes a 
sort of platform whence he may speak. This might 
seem to imply something of the narrow or exclusive ; 
yet not so. Dr. Holmes in all his writings gives us a 
good illustration of the right use of localism, of the 
patriotism that is well bred and quite removed from 
any taint of Chauvinism. He is local without being 
provincial. He would himself be the first to laugh at 
his own parochialism. A sense of humor saves him 
from, taking even Bunker Hill or Boston Common too 
seriously. 

But what, now, were the subjects which Dr. Holmes 
handled in a way to make him seem an iconoclast? 
They were well-nigh as broad and varied as the mind 
of man itself. Noticeable is the interest in such 
aspects of science as were then new to discussion, 
tentative to trial ; noticeable too the skill and relish 
with which Dr. Holmes incorporates into his speech 
scientific terms, making metaphor after metaphor from 
this new material. It would be worth some one's 
while to study the Breakfast series in its stylistic 



X INTRODUCTION. 

manifestations, as a remarkable example of the rapid 
assimilation of new thought for purposes of new ex- 
pression. On one page the essayist discourses of 
phrenology as a pseudo-science ; on another, he gives 
a most sensible little talk on the value of money in 
relation to social position. Here he holds forth on 
development with more than a hint of the as yet com- 
paratively unfamiliar theory of the survival of the 
fittest ; there he waxes vigorous over the silliness of 
spiritualism. Breadth of view, clearness of vision, 
tolerance and common sense make up his judgments. 
Very rarely does he vent an opinion which, from our 
vantage-point of time, can seem anything but sound. 
Some, to-day, will think him hardly fair to homeop- 
athy, at which he pokes gentle fua ; contrariwise, 
his diatribe against the "solemn farce of over-drug- 
ging," and in ridicule of the holding to the' absurdly 
mysterious nomenclature of the doctor's prescription, 
comes more kindly to our ears than ever it could to 
those of forty odd years ago. The frequent disserta- 
tions on religion are admirable for their emphasis on 
the truly important and permanent, the pushing aside 
of the husks of dogma. A fine example of this spirit 
is the picture, in the ninth chapter, of the two churches, 
St. Polycarp and the Chdrch of the Galileans, the one 
standing for pomp and liturgy, the other for simplicity 
and humble good works, — both phases of the life 
spiritual receiving full justice in a mood which recog- 
nizes the essence of all true religion to be summed in 
aspiration and altruism. 

One listens to Dr. Holmes's mild defence of the social 



INTR OD UC TION. xi 

glass with an amused sense of the storm it must have 
aroused among the Temperance Unions ; but even 
when he is most vigorously treading upon pet theories, 
the tone of polite deference, the stingless gayety, the 
genuine bonhomie behind the intellectual earnestness 
of the man, are such as to make the argument winning, 
or at least inoffensive. In short, the social note, if I 
may so phrase it, is steadily clear and strong with Dr. 
Holmes. 

It may well be, however, that the majority of his 
audience then and now enjoys the human nature of 
these sketches more than they do the mental stimula- 
tion to be got out of them. The sly thrusts of satire 
at such oddities in the Vanity Fair as are displayed by 
the young man John, with his all-unconscious good- 
natured vulgarity ; the landlady herself, whose homely 
speech reflects deliciously the war within her breast of 
self-interest and kindliness ; the Poor Relation, humor- 
ous yet with a touch of pathos which recalls Coleridge's 

" poor nigh-related guest, 
Who hath outstayed his welcome while 
And tells the jest without the smile," 

these and still other figures rise before the mind's eye 
and remain in memory. All the depths of human life 
between love and death are traversed in the account 
of the relation between Iris and the Little Gentleman ; 
the whole description of his death has a beauty that is 
lyrical, displaying an essayist thoroughly vibrant to his 
theme, touching the human heart to the quick. It may 
be doubted if he ever did anything better in this kind. 



Xii INTRODUCTION. 

And then the manner of it all ! One comes back at 
the end to speak of style, since that means so much 
with the essayist. Never can it be forgotten that with 
him above all writers the style is the man. The prose 
movement here is so keyed that it does not seem 
abrupt or out of tune to interpolate frequent pieces of 
verse after the gentle fashion begun in the Autocrat ; 
and some of the best known poems of our author are 
here, although there is no second Chambered Nautilus 
or One-Hoss Shay. The men in American Literature 
can be counted on the fingers of one's right hand who 
have possessed, as did Dr. Holmes, the unmistakable 
essay touch and tone ; so exceptional is this particular 
gift. It is indeed misleading to imply that talk like 
this is separable from the thought itself; in fact, mat- 
ter and manner are inseparable ; simply phases of 
personality. Dr. Holmes follows the rule laid down 
by himself in the Autocrat ; he talks of what has long 
been in his mind, what has, therefore, received 
leisurely incubation. The real talkers, he declares, 
are " the people with fresh ideas, of course, and plenty 
of good warm words to dress them in." Here he sits 
for his own photograph. That he used this inimitable 
faculty of expression to purposes of so much charm 
and profit is part of the' good fortune of our native 
literature. 

To make us live in the world of ideas, not in philo- 
sophic detachment therefrom, but all the while with 
our feet firmly planted on the bed-rock of homely 
human affairs, — that is the service Dr. Holmes ren- 
ders us in this and the other books of the series. 



INTR OD UCTION. XUI 

And although in the Professor there is more of phi- 
losophy, a touch of the polemic, the book is made both 
vivid and lovely by its rich humanity in the portrayal 
of characters, its sane presentation of some of the 
fundamental emotions of the human heart. 

Richard Burton. 
March 29, 1902. 



THE PROFESSOR AT THE 
BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW. 



I. 



I INTENDED to have signalized my first appearance 
by a certain large statement, which I flatter myself is 
the nearest approach to a universal formula of life yet 
promulgated at this breakfast-table. It would have 
had a grand effect. For this purpose I fixed my eyes 
on a certain divinity-student, with the intention of ex- 
changing a few phrases, and then forcing my court- 
card, namely. The great end of being. — I will thank 
you for the sugar, — I said. — Man is a dependent 
creature. 

It is a small favor to ask, — said the divinity-student, 

— and passed the sugar to me. 

— Life is a great bundle of little things, — I said. 

The divinity-student smiled, as if that was the con- 
cluding epigram of the sugar question. 

You smile, — I said. — Perhaps life seems to you a 
little bundle of great things ? 

The divinity-student started a laugh, but suddenly 
reined it back with a pull, as one throws a horse on 
his haunches. — Life is a great bundle of great things, 

— he said. 

(^Now, then !) The great end of being, after all, is — 
I 



2 THE PROFESSOR 

Hold on ! — said my neighbor, a young fellow whose 
name seems to be John, and nothing else, — for that 
is what they all call him, — hold on ! the Sculpin is 
go'n' to say somethin'. 

Now the Sculpin {^Coitus Virghiianus) is a little 
water-beast which pretends to consider itself a fish, 
and, under that pretext, hangs about the piles upon 
which West-Boston Bridge is built, swallowing the 
bait and hook intended for flounders. On being 
drawn from the water, it exposes an immense head, a 
diminutive bony carcass, and a surface so full of spines, 
ridges, ruffles, and frills, that the naturalists have not 
been able to count them without quarrelHng about the 
number, and that the colored youth whose sport they 
spoil, do not like to touch them, and especially to tread 
on them, unless they happeif to have shoes on, to 
cover the thick white soles of their broad black feet. 

When, therefore, I heard the young fellow's excla- 
mation, I looked round the table with curiosity to see 
what ^t meant. At the further end of it I saw a head, 
and a small portion of a little deformed body, mounted 
on a high chair, which brought the occupant up to a 
fair level enough for him to get at his food. His 
whole appearance was so grotesque, I felt for a minute 
as if there was a showman behind him who would 
pull him down 'presently and put up Judy, or the 
hangman, or the Devil, or some other wooden per- 
sonage of the famous spectacle. I contrived to lose 
the first part of his sentence, but what I heard began 
so: — 

— by the Frog-Pond, when there were frogs in it, 
and the folks used to come down from the tents on 
'Lection and Independence days with their pails to 
get water to make egg-pop with. Born in Boston ; 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 3 

went to school in Boston as long as the boys would 
let me. — The little man groaned, turned, as if to look 
round, and went on. — Ran away from school one 
day to see Phillips hung for killing Denegri with a 
loggerhead. That was in flip days, when there were 
always two or three loggerheads in the fire. I 'm a 
Boston boy, I tell you, — born at North End, and 
mean to be buried on Copps' Hill, with the good old 
underground people, — the Worthylakes, and the rest 
of 'em. Yes, Sir, — up on the old hill, where they 
buried Captain Daniel Malcolm in a stone grave, ten 
feet deep, to keep him safe from the red-coats, in 
those old times when the world was frozen up tight 
and there wasn't but one spot open, and that was 
right over Faneuil Hall, — and black enough it looked, 
I tell you ! There's where my bones shall lie, Sir, 
and rattle away when the big guns go off at the Navy 
Yard opposite ! You can't make me ashamed of the 
old place ! Full of crooked little streets ; — I was 
born and used to run round in one of 'em — 

— I should think so, — said that young man whom 
I hear them call "John," — softly, not meaning to be 
heard, nor to be cruel, but thinking in a half-whisper, 
evidently. — I should think so ; and got kinked up, 
turnin' so many corners. — The little man did not hear 
what was said, but went on, — 

— full of crooked little streets ; but I tell you Bos- 
ton has opened, and kept open, more turnpikes that 
lead straight to free thought and free speech and free 
deeds than any other city of live men or dead men, — 
I don't care how broad their streets are, nor how high 
their steeples ! 

— How high is Bosting meet'n'-house ? — said a 
person with black whiskers and imperial, a velvet 



4 THE PROFESSOR 

waistcoat, a guard-chain rather too massive, and a 
diamond pin so very large that the most trusting na- 
ture might confess an inward stiggestioii^ — of course, 
nothing amounting to a suspicion. For this is a 
gentleman from a great city, and sits next to the 
landlady's daughter, who evidently believes in him, 
and is the object of his especial attention. 

How high ? — said the little man. — As high as the 
first step of the stairs that lead to the New Jerusalem. 
Isn't that high enough ? 

It is, — I said. — The great end of being is to har- 
monize man with the order of things ; and the church 
has been a good pitch-pipe, and may be so still. But 
who shall tune the pitch-pipe ? Qids ens — (On the 
whole, as this quotation was not entirely new, and, 
being in a foreign language, might not be familiar to 
all the boarders, I thought I would not finish it.) 

— Go to the Bible ! — said a sharp voice from a 
sharp-faced, sharp-eyed, sharp-elbowed, strenuous- 
looking woman in a black dress, appearing as if it 
began as a pjece of mourning and perpetuated itself 
as a bit of economy. 

You speak well. Madam, — I said ; — yet there is 
room for a gloss or commentary on what you say. 
"He who would bring back the wealth of the Indies 
must carry out the wealth of the Indies." What you 
bring away from the Bible depends to some extent 
on vv'hat you carry to it. — Benjamin Franklin ! Be 
so good as to step up to my chamber and bring me 
down the small uncovered pamphlet of twenty pages 
which you will find lying under the " Cruden's Con- 
cordance." [The boy took a large bite, which left a 
very perfect crescent in the slice of bread-and-butter 
he held, and departed on his errand, with the por- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 5 

table fraction of his breakfast to sustain him on the 
way.] 

Here it is. "Go to the Bible. A Dissertation, 
etc., etc. By J. J. Flournoy. Athens, Georgia. 
1858." 

Mr. Flournoy, Madam, has obeyed the precept 
which you have judiciously delivered. You may be 
interested, Madam, to know what are the conclusions 
at which Mr. J. J. Flournoy of Athens, Georgia, has 
arrived. You shall hear, Madam. He has gone to 
the Bible, and he has come back from the Bible, 
bringing a remedy for existing social evils, which, if 
it is the real specific, as it professes to be, is of great 
interest to humanity, and to the female part of 
humanity in particular. It is what he calls trigainy, 
Madam, or the marrying of three wives, so that "good 
old men " may be solaced at once by the companion- 
ship of the wisdom of maturity, and of those less per- 
fected but hardly less engaging qualities which are 
found at an earlier period of life. He has followed 
your precept. Madam ; I hope you accept his con- 
clusions. 

The female boarder in black attire looked so puz- 
zled, and, in fact, " all abroad," after the delivery of 
this " counter " of mine, that I left her to recover her 
wits, and went on with the conversation, which I was 
beginning to get pretty well in hand. 

But in the mean time I kept my eye on the female 
boarder to see what effect I had produced. First, she 
was a little stunned at having her argument knocked 
over. Secondly, she was a little shocked at the tre- 
mendous character of the triple matrimonial sugges- 
tion. Thirdly. — I don't like to say what I thought. 
Something seemed to have pleased her fancy. 



6 THE PROFESSOR 

Whether it was, that, if trigamy should come into 
fashion, there would be three times as many chances 
to enjoy the luxury of saying, " No ! " is more than I 
can tell you. I may as well mention that B. F. came 
to me after breakfast to borrow the pamphlet for " a 
lady," — one of the boarders, he said, — looking as if 
he had a secret he wished to be relieved of. 

— I continued. — If a human soul is necessarily to 
be trained up in the faith of those from whom it in- 
herits its body, why, there is the end of all reason. 
If, sooner or later, every soul is to look for truth with 
its own eyes, the first thing is to recognize that no 
presumption in favor of any particular belief arises 
from the fact of our inheriting it. Otherwise you 
would not give the Mahometan a fair chance to be- 
come a convert to a better religion. -^ 

The second thing would be to depolarize every 
fixed religious idea in the mind by changing the word 
which stands for it. 

— I don't know what you mean by " depolarizing " 
an idea, — sa'id the divinity-student. 

I will tell you, — I said. — When a given symbol 
which represents a thought has lain for a certain 
length of time in the mind, it undergoes a change like 
that which rest in a certain position gives to iron. 
It becomes magnetic in its relations, — it is traversed 
by strange forces which did not belong to it. The 
word, and consequently the idea it represents, is 
polarized. 

The religious currency of mankind, in thought, in 
speech, and in print, consists entirely of polarized 
words. Borrow one of these from another language 
and religion, and you will find it leaves all its magnet- 
ism behind it. Take that famous word, O'm, of the 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. J 

Hindoo mythology. Even a priest cannot pronounce 
it without sin ; and a holy Pundit would shut his ears 
and run away from you in horror, if you should say it 
aloud. What do you care for O'm ? If you wanted 
to get the Pundit to look at his religion fairly, you 
must first depolarize this and all similar words for him. 
The argument for and against new translations of the 
Bible really turns on this. Skepticism is afraid to 
trust its truths in depolarized words, and so cries out 
against a new translation. I think, myself, if every 
idea our Book contains could be shelled out of its old 
symbol and put into a new, clean, unmagnetic word, 
we should have some chance of reading it as philoso- 
phers, or wisdom-lovers, ought to read it, — which we 
do not and cannot now, any more than a Hindoo can 
read the " Gayatri " as a fair man and lover of truth 
should do. When society has once fairly dissolved 
the New Testament, which it never has done yet, it 
will perhaps crystallize it over again in new forms of 
language. 

— I didn't know you was a settled minister over 
this parish, — said the young fellow near me. 

A sermon by a lay-preacher may be worth listen- 
ing to, — I replied, calmly. — It gives ihe parallax oi 
thought and feeling as they appear to the observers 
from two very difTerent points of view. If you wish 
to get the distance of a heavenly body, you know that 
you must take two observations from remote points 
of the earth's orbit, — in midsummer and midwinter, 
for instance. To get the parallax of heavenly truths, 
you must take an observation from the position of the 
laity as well as of the clergy. Teachers and students 
of theology get a certain look, certain conventional 
tones of voice, a clerical gait, a professional neckcloth, 



8 THE PROFESSOR 

and habits of mind as professional as their externals. 
They are scholarly men and read Bacon, and know 
well enough what the " idols of the tribe " are. Of 
course they have their false gods, as all men that fol- 
low one exclusive calling are prone to do. — The 
clergy have played the part of the fly-wheel in our 
modern civilization. They have never suffered it to 
stop. They have often carried on its movement, 
when other moving powers failed, by the momentum 
stored in their vast body. Sometimes, too, they have 
kept it back by their vis hierticB, when its wheels were 
like to grind the bones of some old canonized error 
into fertilizers for the soil that yields the bread of life. 
But the mainspring of the world's onward religious 
movement is not in them, nor in any one body of men, 
let me tell you. It is the people that naakes the clergy, 
and not the clergy that makes the people. Of course, 
the profession reacts on its source with variable en- 
ergy. — But there never was a guild of dealers or a 
company of craftsmen that did not need sharp look- 
ing after. ' 

Our old friend, Dr. Holyoke, whom we gave the din- 
ner to some time since, must have known many people 
that saw the great bonfire in Harvard College yard. 

— Bonfire ? — '■ shrieked the little man. — The bon- 
fire when Robert Calef s book was burned ? 

The same, — I said, — when Robert Calef the Bos- 
ton merchant's book was burned in the yard of Har- 
vard College, by order of Increase Mather, President 
of the College and Minister of the Gospel. You re- 
member the old witchcraft revival of '92, and how 
stout Master Robert Calef, trader, of Boston, had the 
pluck to tell the ministers and judges what a set of 
fools and worse than fools they were — 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 9 

Remember it ? — said the little man. — I don't think 
I shall forget it, as long as I can stretch this fore- 
finger to point with, and see what it wears. — There 
was a ring on it. 

May J look at it ? — I said. 

Where it is, — said the little man ; — it will never 
come off, till it falls off from the bone in the darkness 
and in the dust. 

He pushed the high chair on which he sat slightly 
back from the table, and dropped himself, standing, 
to the floor, — his head being only a little above the 
level of the table, as he stood. With pain and labor, 
lifting one foot over the other, as a drummer handles 
his sticks, he took a few steps from his place, — his 
motions and the dead beat of the misshapen boots an- 
nouncing to my practised eye and ear the malforma- 
tion which is called in learned language talipes varus^ 
or inverted club-foot. 

Stop ! stop ! — I said, — let me come to you. 

The little man hobbled back, and lifted himself by 
the left arm, with an ease approaching to grace which 
surprised me, into his high chair. I walked to his 
side, and he stretched out the forefinger of his right 
hand, with the ring upon it. The ring had been put 
on long ago, and could not pass the misshapen joint. 
It was one of those funeral rings which used to be 
given to relatives and friends after the decease of per- 
sons of any note or importance. Beneath a round bit 
of glass was a death's head. Engraved on one side 
of this, "L. B. JE\. 22," — on the other, "Ob. 1692." 

My grandmother's grandmother, — said the little 
man. — Hanged for a witch. It doesn't seem a great 
while ago. I knew my grandmother, and loved her. 
Her mother was daughter to the witch that Chief Jus- 



lO THE PROFESSOR 

tice Sewall hanged and Cotton Mather delivered over to 
the Devil. — That was Salem, though, and not Boston. 
No, not Boston. Robert Calef, the Boston merchant, 
it was that blew them all to — 

Never mind where he blew them to, — I said; — 
for the little man was getting red in the face, and I 
didn't know what might come next. 

This episode broke me up, as the jockeys say, out 
of my square conversational trot ; but I settled down 
to it again. 

— A man that knows men, in the street, at their 
work, human nature in its shirt-sleeves, — who makes 
bargains with deacons, instead of talking over texts 
with them, — a man who has found out that there are 
plenty of praying rogues and swearing saints in the 
world, — above all, who has found out, by living into 
the pith and core of life, that all of the Deity which can 
be folded up between the sheets of any human book 
is to the Deity of the firmament, of the strata, of the 
hot aortic flood of throbbing human life, of this infi- 
nite, instantaneous consciousness in which the soul's 
being consists, — an incandescent point in the filament 
connecting the negative pole of a past eternity with the 
positive pole of an eternity that is to come, — that 
all of the Deity which any human book can hold is 
to this larger Deity of the working battery of the 
universe only as the films in a book of gold-leaf are 
to the broad seams and curdled lumps of ore that lie 
in unsunned mines and virgin placers, — Oh! — I 
was saying that a man who lives out-of-doors, among 
live people, gets some things into his head he might 
not find in the index of his " Body of Divinity." 

I tell you what, — the idea of the professions' dig- 
ging a moat round their close corporations, like that 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. n 

Japanese one at Jeddo, which you could put Park- 
Street Church on the bottom of and look over the 
vane from its side, and try to stretch another such 
spire across it without spanning the chasm, — that 
idea, I say, is pretty nearly worn out. Now when a 
civilization or a civilized custom falls into senile 
dementia, there is commonly a judgment ripe for it, 
and it comes as plagues come, from a breath, — as 
fires come, from a spark. 

Here, look at medicine. Big wigs, gold-headed 
canes, Latin prescriptions, shops full of abominations, 
recipes a yard long, " curing '' patients by drugging 
as sailors bring a wind by whistling, selling lies at a 
guinea apiece — a routine, in short, of giving unfor- 
tunate sick people a mess of things either too odious 
to swallow or too acrid to hold, or, if that were pos- 
sible, both at once. 

— You don't know what I mean, indignant and not 
unintelligent country-practitioner ? Then you don't 
know the history of medicine, —and that is not my 
fault. But don't expose yourself in any outbreak of 
eloquence; for, by the mortar in which Anaxarchus 
was pounded ! I did not bring home Schenckius and 
Forestus and Hildanus, and all the old folios in calf 
and vellum I will show you, to be bullied by the pro- 
prietor of a "Wood and Bache," and a shelf of pep- 
pered sheepskin reprints by Philadelphia Editors. 
Besides, many of the profession and I know a little 
something of each other, and you don't think I am 
such a simpleton as to lose their good opinion by say- 
ing what the better heads among them would condemn 
as unfair and untrue ? Now mark how the great 
plague came on the generation of drugging doctors, 
and in what form it fell. 



12 THE PROFESSOR 

A scheming drug-vendor, (inventive genius,) an 
utterly untrustworthy and incompetent observer, (pro- 
found searcher of Nature,) a shallow dabbler in eru- 
dition, (sagacious scholar,) started the monstrous 
fiction (founded the immortal system) of Homoe- 
opathy. I am very fair, you see, — you can help your- 
self to either of these sets of phrases. 

All the reason in the world would not have had so 
rapid and general an effect on the pubhc mind to dis- 
abuse it of the idea that a drug is a good thing in it- 
self, instead of being, as it is, a bad thing, as was 
produced by the trick (system) of this German char- 
latan (theorist). Not that the wiser part of the pro- 
fession needed him to teach them ; but the routinists 
and their employers, the '' general practitioners," who 
lived by selling pills and mixtures, and-<their drug-con- 
suming customers, had to recognize that people could 
get well, unpoisoned. Th^se dumb cattle would not 
learn it of themselves, and so the murrain of Homoe- 
opathy fell on them. 

— You donH know what plague has fallen on the 
practitioners of theology ? I will tell you, then. It 
is SPIRITUALISM. While some are crying out against 
it as a delusion of the Devil, and some are laughing 
at it as an hysteric folly, and some are getting angry 
with it as a mere trick of interested or mischievous 
persons, Spiritualism is quietly undermining the tradi- 
tional ideas of the future state which have been and 
are still accepted, — not merely in those who believe 
in it, but in the general sentiment of the community, 
to a larger extent than most good people seem to be 
aware of. It needn't be true, to do this, any more 
than Homoeopathy need, to do its work. The Spirit- 
ualists have some pretty strong instincts to pry over, 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 3 

which no doubt have been roughly handled by theo- 
logians at different times. And the Nemesis of the 
pulpit comes, in a shape it little thought of, beginning 
with the snap of a toe-joint, and ending with such a 
crack of old beliefs that the roar of it is heard in all 
the ministers' studies of Christendom! Sir, you can- 
not have people of cultivation, of pure character, sen- 
sible enough in common things, large-hearted women, 
grave judges, shrewd business-men, men of science, 
professing to be in communication with the spiritual 
world and keeping up constant intercourse with it, 
without its gradually reacting on the whole conception 
of that other life. It is the folly of the world, con- 
stantly, which confounds its wisdom. Not only out 
of the mouths of babes and sucklings, but out of the 
mouths of fools and cheats, we may often get our 
truest lessons. For the fooPs judgment is a dog-vane 
that turns with a breath, and the cheat watches the 
clouds and sets his weathercock by them, — so that 
one shall often see by their pointing which way the 
winds of heaven are blowing, when the slow-wheel- 
ing arrows and feathers of what we call the Temples 
of Wisdom are turning to all points of the compass. 

— Amen! — said the young fellow called John. — 
Ten minutes by the watch. Those that are unanimous 
will please to signify by holding up their left foot ! 

I looked this young man steadily in the face for 
about thirty seconds. His countenance was as calm 
as that of a reposing infant. I think it was simplicity, 
rather than mischief, with perhaps a youthful play- 
fulness, that led him to this outbreak. I have often 
noticed that even quiet horses, on a sharp November 
morning, when their coats are just beginning to get 
the winter roughness, will give little sportive demi- 



14 THE PROFESSOR 

kicks, with slight sudden elevation of the subsequent 
region of the body, and a sharp short whinny, — by 
no means intending to put their heels through the 
dasher, or to address the driver rudely, but feeling, to 
use a familiar word, frisky. This, I think, is the physi- 
ological condition of the young person, John. I no- 
ticed, however, what I should call 2i palpebral spasm, 
affecting the eyelid and muscles of one side, which, if 
it were intended for the facial gesture called a wink, 
might lead me to suspect a disposition to be satirical 
on his part. 

— Resuming the conversation, I remarked, — I am, 
ex officio, as a Professor, a conservative. For I don't 
know any fruit that clings to its tree so faithfully, not 
even a " froze-'n'-thaw " winter-apple, as a Professor 
to the bough of which his chair is made. You can't 
shake him off, and it is as much as you can do to pull 
him off. Hence, by a chain of induction I need not 
unwind, he tends to conservatism generally. 

But then, you know, if you are sailing the Atlantic, 
and all at once find yourself in a current, and the 
sea covered with weeds, and drop your Fahrenheit 
over the side and find it eight or ten degrees higher 
than in the ocean generally, there is no use in flying 
in the face of facts and swearing there is no such thing 
as a Gulf-Stream, when you are in it. 

You can't keep gas in a bladder, and you can't 
keep knowledge tight in a profession. Hydrogen will 
leak out, and air will leak in, through India-rubber; 
and special knowledge will leak out, and general 
knowledge will leak in, though a profession were cov- 
ered with twenty thicknesses of sheepskin diplomas. 
By Jove, Sir, till common sense is well mixed up with 
medicine, and common manhood with theology, and 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 15 

common honesty with law, We the people, Sir, some 
of us with nut-crackers, and some of us with trip- 
hammers, and some of us with pile-drivers, and some 
of us coming with a whish ! like air-stones out of a 
lunar volcano, will crash down on the lumps of non- 
sense in all of them till we have made powder of them 
like Aaron's calf ! 

If to be a conservative is to let all the drains of 
thought choke up and keep all the souPs windows 
down, — to shut out the sun from the east and the 
wind from the west, — to let the rats run free in the cel- 
lar, and the moths feed their fill in the chambers, and 
the spiders weave their lace before the mirrors, till the 
souPs typhus is bred out of our neglect, and we begin 
to snore in its coma or rave in its delirium, — I, Sir, 
am a bonnet-rouge, a red-cap of the barricades, my 
friends, rather than a conservative. 

— Were you born in Boston, Sir ? — said the little 
man, — looking eager and excited. 

I was not, — I replied. 

It 's a pity, — it 's a pity, — said the little man ; — 
it 's the place to be born in. But if you can't fix it so 
as to be born here, you can come and live here. Old 
Ben Franklin, the father of American science and the 
American Union, wasn't ashamed to be born here. 
Jim Otis, the father of American Independence, 
bothered about in the Cape Cod marshes awhile, but 
he came to Boston as soon as he got big enough. 
Joe Warren, the first bloody rufiied-shirt of the Revo- 
lution, was as good as born here. Parson Channing 
strolled along this way from Newport, and staid here. 
Pity old Sam Hopkins had n't come, too ; — we 'd have 
made a man of him, — poor, dear, good old Christian 
heathen ! there he lies, as peaceful as a young baby. 



1 6 THE PROFESSOR 

in the old burying-ground ! I Ve stood on the slab 
many a time. Meant well, — meant well. Juggernaut. 
Parson Channing put a little oil on one linchpin, and 
slipped it out so softly, the first thing they knew about 
it was the wheel of that side was down. T'other 
fellow 's at work now ; but he makes more noise about 
it. When the linchpin comes out on his side, there '11 
be a jerk, I tell you ! Some think it will spoil the old 
cart, and they pretend to say that there are valuable 
things in it which may get hurt. Hope not, — hope 
not. But this is the great Macadamizing place, — 
always cracking up something. 

Cracking up Boston folks, — said the gentleman 
with the diamond--^m, whom, for convenience' sake, 
I shall hereafter call the Koh-i-noor. 

The little man turned round mechaaically towards 
him, as Maelzel's Turk used to turn, carrying his 
head slowly and horizontally, as if it went by cog- 
wheels. — Cracking up all sorts of things, — native 
and foreign vermin included, — said the little man. 

This remark was thought by some of us to have a 
hidden personal application, and to afford a fair open- 
ing for a lively rejoinder, if the Koh-i-noor had been so 
disposed. The little man uttered it with the distinct 
wooden calmness with which the ingenious Turk used 
to exclaim, E-checl so that it jmist have been heard. 
The party supposed to be interested in the remark 
was, however, carrying a large knife-blade-full of 
something to his mouth just then, which, no doubt, 
interfered with the reply he would have made. 

— My friend who used to board here was accus- 
tomed sometimes, in a pleasant way, to call himself 
the Antoc7'at of the table, — meaning, I suppose, that 
he had it all his own way among the boarders. I think 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 



17 



our small boarder here is like to prove a refractory 
subject, if I undertake to use the sceptre my friend 
meant to bequeath me, too magisterially. f v.on't 
deny that sometimes, on rare occasions, when I have 
been in company with gentlemen who preferred lis- 
tening, I have been guilty of the same kind of usurpa- 
tion which my friend openly justified. But I maintain 
that I, the Professor, am a good listener. If a man 
can tell me a fact which subtends an appreciable angle 
in the horizon of thought, I am as receptive as tlie 
contribution-box in a congregation of colored brethren. 
If, when I am exposing my intellectual dry-goods, a 
man will begin a good story, I will have them all in, 
and my shutters up, before he has got to the fifth 
« says he," and listen like a three years' child, as the 
author of the "Old Sailor" says. I had rather hear 
one of those grand elemental laughs from either of our 
two Georges, (fictitious names. Sir or Madam,) or 
listen to one of those old playbills of our College days, 
in which "Tom and Jerry" ("Thomas and Jere- 
miah," as the old Greek Professor was said to call it,) 
was announced to be brought on the stage with the 
whole force of the Faculty, read by our Frederick, (no 
such person, of course,) than say the best things I 
might by any chance find myself capable of saying. 
Of course, if I come across a real thinker, a suggestive, 
acute, illuminating, informing talker, I enjoy the luxury 
of sitting still for a while as much as another. 

Nobody talks much that doesn't say unwise things, 
— things he did not mean to say; as no person plays 
much without striking a false note sometimes. Talk, 
to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of 
thought. I can't answer for what will turn up. If I 
could, it wouldn't be talking, but "speaking my 



1 8 THE PROFESSOR 

piece." Better, I think, the hearty abandonment of 
one's self to the suggestions of the moment, at the 
risk of an occasional slip of the tongue, perceived the 
instant it escapes, but just one syllable too late, than 
the royal reputation of never saying a foolish thing. 

— What shall I do with this little man ? — There is 
only one thing to do, — and that is, to let him talk 
when he will. The day of the "Autocrat's" mono- 
logues is over. 

— My friend, — said I to the young fellow whom, as 
I have said, the boarders call "John," — My friend, — 
I said, one morning, after breakfast, — can you give 
me any information respecting the deformed person 
who sits at the other end of the table ? 

What ! the Sculpin ? — said the young fellow. 

The diminutive person, with angular curvature of 
the spine, — I said, — and double talipes varus ^ — I 
beg your pardon, — with two club-feet. 

Is that long word what you call it when a fellah 
walks so? — said the young man, making his fists re- 
volve round ^n imaginary axis, as you may have seen 
youth of tender age and limited pugilistic knowledge, 
when they show how they would punish an adversary, 
themselves protected by this rotating guard, — the 
middle knuckle, meantime, thumb-supported, fiercely 
prominent, death-threatening. 

It is, — said I. — But would you have the kindness 
to tell me if you know anything about this deformed 
person ? 

About the Sculpin ? — said the young fellow. 

My good friend, — said I, — I am sure, by your 
countenance, you would not hurt the feelings of one 
who has been hardly enough treated by Nature to be 
spared by his fellows. Even in speaking of him to 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 9 

others, I could wish that you might not employ a term 
which implies contempt for what should inspire only 
pity. 

A fellah's no business to be so — crooked, — said 
the young man called John. 

Yes, yes, — I said, thoughtfully, — the strong hate 
the weak. It 's all right. The arrangement has refer- 
ence to the race, and not to the individual. Infirmity 
must be kicked out, or the stock run down. Whole- 
sale moral arrangements are so different from retail ! 
— I understand the instinct, my friend, — it is cos- 
mic, — it is planetary, — it is a conservative principle 
in creation. 

The young fellow's face gradually lost its expression 
as I was speaking, until it became as blank of vivid 
significance as the countenance of a gingerbread rab- 
bit with two currants in the place of eyes. He had 
not taken my meaning. 

Presently the intelligence came back with a snap 
that made him wink, as he answered, — Jest so. All 
right. A I. Put her through. That's the way to 
talk. ^Did you speak to me. Sir ? — Here the young 
man struck up that well-known song which I think 
they used to sing at Masonic festivals, beginning, 
" Aldiborontiphoscophornio, Where left you Chronon- 
hotonthologos? " 

I beg your pardon, — I said ; — all I meant was, 
that men, as temporary occupants of a permanent 
abode called human life, which is improved or injured 
by occupancy, according to the style of tenant, have 
a natural dislike to those who, if they live the life of 
the race as well as of the individual, will leave lasting 
injurious effects upon the abode spoken of, which is 
to be occupied by countless future generations. This 



20 THE PROFESSOR 

is the final cause of the underlying brute instinct 
which we have in common with the herds. 

— The gingerbread-rabbit expression was coming 
on so fast, that I thought I must try again. — It's a 
pity that families are kept up, where there are such 
hereditary infirmities. Still, let us treat this poor 
man fairly, and not call him names. Do you know 
what his name is ? 

I know what the rest of 'em call him, — said the 
young fellow. — They call him Little Boston. There 's 
no harm in that, is there? 

It is an honorable term, — I replied. — But why 
Little Boston^ in a place where most are Bostonians ? 

Because nobody else is quite so Boston all over as 
he is, — said the young fellow. 

«L. B., Ob. 1692." — Little Bosjon let him be, 
when we talk about him. The ring he wears labels 
him well enough. There is stuff in the little man, or 
he wouldn't stick so manfully by this crooked, crotch- 
ety old town. Give him a chance. — You will drop 
the Sculpin, won't you? — I said to the young fellow. 

Drop him? — he answered, — I ha'n't took him up 
yet. 

No, no, — the term, — I said, — the term. Don't 
call him so any more, if you please. Call him Little 
Boston, if you like. 

All right, — said the young fellow. — I wouldn't be 
hard on the poor little — 

The word he used was objectionable in point of 
significance and of grammar. It was a frequent ter- 
mination of certain adjectives among the Romans, — 
as of those designating a person following the sea, 
or given to rural pursuits. It is classed by custom 
among the profane words ; why, it is hard to say, — 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 21 

but it is largely used in the street by those who speak 
of their fellows in pity or in wrath. 

I never heard the young fellow apply the name of 
the odious pretended fish to the little man from that 
day forward. 

— Here we are, then, at our boarding-house. First, 
myself, the Professor, a little way from the head of the 
table, on the right, looking down, where the " Auto- 
crat" used to sit. At the further end sits the Landlady. 
At the head of the table, just now, the Koh-i-noor, or 
the gentleman with the diamond. Opposite me is a 
Venerable Gentleman with a bland countenance, who 
as yet has spoken little. The Divinity-Student is my 
neighbor on the right, — and further down, that Young 
Fellow of whom I have repeatedly spoken. The Land- 
lady's Daughter sits near the Koh-i-noor, as I said. 
The Poor Relation near the Landlady. At the right 
upper corner is a fresh-looking youth of whose name 
and history I have as yet learned nothing. Next the 
further left-hand corner, near the lower end of the 
table, sits the deformed person. The chair at his 
side, occupying that corner, is empty. I need not 
specially mention the other boarders, with the excep- 
tion of Benjamin Franklin, the landlady's son, who sits 
near his mother. We are a tolerably assorted set, — 
difference enough and likeness enough ; but still it 
seems to me there is something wanting. The Land- 
lady's Daughter is the prima donna in the way of 
feminine attractions. I am not quite satisfied with 
this young lady. She wears more " jewelry," as cer- 
tain young ladies call their trinkets, than I care to see 
on a person in her position. Her voice is strident, 
her laugh too much like a giggle, and she has that 
foolish way of dancing and bobbing like a quill-float 



22 THE PROFESSOR 

with a "minnum" biting the hook below it, which 
one sees and weeps over sometimes in persons of 
more pretensions. I can't help hoping we shall put 
something into that empty chair yet which will add 
the missing string to our social harp. I hear talk of 
a rare Miss who is expected. Something in the 
school-girl way, I believe. We shall see. 

— My friend who calls himself The Autocrat has 
given me a caution which I am going to repeat, with 
my comment upon it, for the benefit of all concerned. 

Professor, — said he, one day, — don't you think 
your brain will run dry before a year's out, if you don't 
get the pump to help the cow ? Let me tell you what 
happened to me once. I put a little money into a 
bank, and bought a check-book, so t^at I might draw 
it as I wanted, in sums to suit. Things went on 
nicely for a time ; scratching with a pen was as easy 
as rubbing Aladdin's Lamp : and my blank check- 
book seemed to be a dictionary of possibilities, in 
which I cou'ld find all the synonymes of happiness, 
and realize any one of them on the spot. A check 
came back to me at last with these two words on it, — 
No funds. My check-book was a volume of waste- 
paper. 

Now, Professor, — said he, — I have drawn some- 
thing out of your bank', you know ; and just so sure 
as you keep drawing out your soul's currency without 
making new deposits, the next thing will be, Nofi/Jids, 
— and then where will you be, my boy? These 
little bits of paper mean your gold and your silver and 
your copper. Professor ; and you will certainly break 
up and go to pieces, if you don't hold on to your 
metallic basis. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 23 

There is something in that, — said I. — Only I 
rather think life can coin thought somewhat faster 
than I can count it off in words. What if one shall 
go round and dry up with soft napkins all the dew 
that falls of a June evening on the leaves of his gar- 
den ? Shall there be no more dew on those leaves 
thereafter? Marry, yea, — many drops, large and 
round and full of moonlight as those thou shalt have 
absterged ! 

Here am I, the Professor, — a man who has lived 
long enough to have plucked the flowers of life and 
come to the berries, — which are not always sad- 
colored, but sometimes golden-hued as the crocus of 
April, or rosy-cheeked as the damask of June ; a man 
who staggered against books as a baby, and will totter 
against them, if he lives to decrepitude ; with a brain 
as full of tingling thoughts, such as they are, as a 
limb which we call " asleep," because it is so particu- 
larly awake, is of pricking points ; presenting a key- 
board of nerve-pulps, not as yet tanned or ossified, to 
the finger-touch of all outward agencies ; knowing 
something of the filmy threads of this web of life in 
which we insects buzz awhile, waiting for the gray 
old spider to come along; contented enough with 
daily realities, but twirling on his finger the key of a 
private Bedlam of ideals ; in knowledge feeding with 
the fox oftener than with the stork, — loving better 
the breadth of a fertilizing inundation than the depth 
of a narrow artesian well ; finding nothing too small 
for his contemplation in the markings oi the. gram^na- 
tophora siibtilissima^ and nothing too large in the 
movement of the solar system towards the star 
Lambda of the constellation Hercules ; — and the 
question is, whether there is anything left for me, the 



24 THE PROFESSOR 

Professor, to suck out of creation, after my lively friend 
has had his straw in the bunghole of the Universe ! 

A man's mental reactions with the atmosphere of 
life must go on, whether he will or no, as between his 
blood and the air he breathes. As to catching the 
residuum of the process, or what we call thoiig/it, — 
the gaseous ashes of burned-out thinking, — the excre- 
tion of mental respiration, — that will depend on many 
things, as, on having a favorable intellectual tempera- 
ture about one, and a fitting receptacle. — I sow more 
thought-seeds in twenty-four hours' travel over the 
desert-sand along which my lonely consciousness 
paces day and night, than I shall throw into soil where 
it will germinate, in a year. All sorts of bodily and 
mental perturbations come between us and the due 
projection of our thought. The pulse-ljke " fits of easy 
and difficult transmission'' seem to reach even the 
transparent medium through which our souls are seen. 
We know our humanity by its often intercepted rays, 
as we tell a revolving light from a star or meteor by 
its constantly! recurring obscuration. 

An illustrious scholar once told me, that, in the first 
lecture he ever delivered, he spoke but half his 
allotted time, and felt as if he had told all he knew. 
Braham came forward once to sing one of his most 
famous and familiar songs, and for his life could not 
recall the first line of it;' — he told his m.ishap to the 
audience, and they screamed it at him in a chorus of 
a thousand voices. Milton could not write to suit 
himself, except from the autumnal to the vernal 
equinox. One in the clothing-business, who, there is 
reason to suspect, may have inherited, by descent, the 
great poet's impressible temperament, let a customer 
slip through his fingers one day without fitting him 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2$ 

with a new garment. " Ah ! " said he to a friend of 
mine, who was standing by, " if it hadn't been for 
that confounded headache of mine this morning, I 'd 
have had a coat on that man, in spite of himself, before 
he left the store." A passing throb, only, — but it 
deranged the nice mechanism required to persuade the 
accidental human being, x, into a given piece of broad- 
cloth, a. 

We must take care not to confound this frequent 
difficulty of transmission of our ideas with want of 
ideas. I suppose that a man's mind does in time form 
a neutral salt with the elements in the universe for 
which it has special elective affinities. In fact, I look 
upon a library as a kind of mental chemist's shop, 
filled with the crystals of all forms and hues which 
have come from the union of individual thought with 
local circumstances or universal principles. 

When a man has worked out his special affinities in 
this way, there is an end of his genius as a real solvent. 
No more effervescence and hissing tumult as he pours 
his sharp thought on the world's biting alkaline un- 
beliefs ! No more corrosion of the old monumental 
tablets covered with lies ! No more taking up of dull 
earths, and turning them, first into clear solutions, and 
then into lustrous prisms ! 

I, the Professor, am very much like other men. I 
shall not find out when I have used up my affinities. 
What a blessed thing it is, that Nature, when she in- 
vented, manufactured, and patented her authors, con- 
trived to make critics out of the chips that were left ! 
Painful as the task is, they never fail to warn the 
author, in the most impressive manner, of the prob- 
abilities of failure in what he has undertaken. Sad 
as the necessity is to their delicate sensibilities, they 



26 THE PROFESSOR 

never hesitate to advertise him of the decline of his 
powers, and to press upon him the propriety of retir- 
ing before he sinks into imbecility. Trusting to their 
kind offices, I shall endeavor to fulfil — 

Bridget enters and begins clearing the table. 

— The following poem is my (The Professor's) 
only contribution to the great department of Ocean- 
Cable literature. As all the poets of this country will 
be engaged for the next six weeks in writing for the 
premium offered by the Crystal-Palace Company for 
the Burns Centenary, (so called, according to our 
Benjamin Franklin, because there will be na'ry a cent 
for any of us,) poetry will be very scarce and dear. 
Consumers may, consequently, be glad to take the 
present article, which, by the aid of a Latin tutor and 
a Professor of Chemistry, will be found intelligible to 
the educated classes. 



' DE SAUTY. 

AN ELECTRO-CHEMICAL ECLOGUE. 

Professor. Blue-Nose. 

PRpFESSOR. 

Tell me, O Provincial ! speak, Ceruleo-Nasal ! 
Lives there one De Sauty extant now among you, 
Whispering Boanerges, son of silent thunder, 
Holding talk with nations ? 

Is there a De Sauty ambulant on Tellus, 
Bifid-cleft like mortals, dormient in night-cap, 
Having sight, smell, hearing, food-receiving feature 
Three times daily patent ? 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 27 

Breathes there such a being, O Ceruleo-Nasal ? 
Or is he a mythus, — ancient word for " humbug," — 
Such as Livy told about the wolf that wet-nursed 
Romulus and Remus ? 

Was he born of woman, this alleged De Sauty ? 
Or a living product of galvanic action, 
Like the acanis bred in Crosse's fiint-solution ? 
Speak, thou Cyano-Rhinal ! 

BLUE-NOSE. 
Many things thou askest, jackknife-bearing stranger, 
Much-conjecturing mortal, pork-and-treacle-waster ! 
Pretermit thy whittling, wheel thine ear-flap toward me, 
Thou shalt hear them answered. 

When the charge galvanic tingled through the cable, 
At the polar focus of the wire electric 
Suddenly appeared a white-faced man among us : 
Called himself " De Sauty." 

As the small opossum held in pouch maternal 
Grasps the nutrient organ whence the term mammalia, 
So the unknown stranger held the wire electric, 
Sucking in the current. 

When the current strengthened, bloomed the pale-faced 

stranger, — 
Took no drink nor victual, yet grew fat and rosy,— 
And from time to time, in sharp articulation, 
Said, " All right / De Sauty." 

From the lonely station passed the utterance, spreading 
Through the pines and hemlocks to the groves of steeples, 
Till the land was filled with loud reverberations 
Of "All right/ De Sauty." 

When the current slackened, drooped the mystic stranger, — 
Faded, faded, faded, as the stream grew weaker, — 



28 THE PROFESSOR 

Wasted to a shadow, with a hartshorn odor 
Of disintegration. 

Drops of deliquescence glistened on his forehead, 
Whitened round his feet the dust of efflorescence, 
Till one Monday morning, when the flow suspended, 
There was no De Sauty. 

Nothing but a cloud of elements organic, 
C. O. H. N. Ferrum, Chor. Flu. Sil. Potassa, 
Calc. Sod. Phosph. Mag. Sulphur, Mang.(?) Alumin.(?) 
Cuprum, (?) 
Such as man is made of. 

Born of stream galvanic, with it he had perished ! 
There is no De Sauty now there is no current ! 
Give us a new cable, then again we'll hear him 
Cry, " All right! DE Sauty." 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 29 



II. 

Back again! — A turtle — which means a tortoise 
— is fond of his shell ; but if you put a live coal on 
his back, he crawls out of it. So the boys say. 

It is a libel on the turtle. He grows to his shell, 
and his shell is in his body as much as his body is in 
his shell. — I don't think there is one of our boarders 
quite so testudineous as I am. Nothing but a com- 
bination of motives, more peremptory than the coal 
on the turtle's back, could have got me to leave the 
shelter of my carapace ; and after memorable inter- 
views, and kindest hospitalities, and grand sights, and 
huge influx of patriotic pride, — for every American 
owns all America, — 

~ *' Creation's heir, — the world, the world is " 

his, if anybody's, — I come back with the feeling 
which a boned turkey might experience, if, retaining his 
consciousness, he were allowed to resume his skeleton. 
Welcome, O Fighting Gladiator, and Recumbent 
Cleopatra, and Dying Warrior, whose classic outlines 
(reproduced in the calcined mineral of Lutetia) crown 
my loaded shelves ! Welcome, ye triumphs of pic- 
torial art (repeated by the magic graver) that look 
down upon me from the walls of my sacred cell ! 
Vesalius, as Titian drew him, high-fronted, still- 
eyed, thick-bearded, with signet-ring, as beseems a 
gentleman, with book and carelessly-held eyeglass, 



30 THE PROFESSOR 

marking him a scholar ; thou, too, Jan Kuyper, com- 
monly called Jan Praktiseer, old man of a century and 
seven years besides, father of twenty sons and two 
daughters, cut in copper by Houbraken, bought from 
a portfolio on one of the Paris qiiais; and ye Three 
Trees of Rembrandt, black in shadow against the 
blaze of sunlight ; and thou Rosy Cottager of Sir 
Joshua, — thy roses hinted by the peppery burin of 
Bartolozzi ; ye, too, of lower grades in nature, yet 
not unlovely nor unrenowned, Young Bull of Paulus 
Potter, and Sleeping Cat of Cornelius Visscher ; wel- 
come once more to my eyes ! The old books look 
out from the shelves, and I seem to read on their 
backs something besides their titles, — a kind of 
solemn greeting. The crimson carpet flushes warm 
under my feet. The arm-chair hugs me ; the swivel- 
chair spins round with me, as if it were giddy with 
pleasure; the vast recumbent /"(^;//t'w7 stretches itself 
out under my weight, as one joyous with food and 
wine stretches in after-dinner laughter. 

The boardfers were pleased to say that they were 
glad to get me back. One of them ventured a com- 
pliment, namely, — that I talked as if I believed what 
I said. — This was apparently considered something 
unusual, by its being mentioned. 

One who means to talk with entire sincerity, — I 
said, — always feels himself in danger of two things, 
namely, — an affectation of bluntness, like that of 
which Cornwall accuses Kent in " Lear," and actual 
rudeness. What a man wants to do, in talking with 
a stranger, is to get and to give as much of the best 
and most real life that belongs to the two talkers as 
the time will let him. Life is short, and conversation 
apt to run to mere words. Mr. Hue I think it is, who 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 3 1 

tells us some very good stories about the way in 
which two Chinese gentlemen contrive to keep up a 
long talk without saying a word which has any mean- 
ing in it. Something like this is occasionally heard 
on this side of the Great Wall. The best Chinese 
talkers I know are some pretty women whom I meet 
from time to time. Pleasant, airy, complimentary, 
the little flakes of flattery glimmering in their talk like 
the bits of gold-leaf in eau-de-vie de Dantzic ; their 
accents flowing on in a soft ripple, — never a wave, 
and never a calm ; words nicely fitted, but never a 
colored phrase or a high-flavored epithet ; they turn 
air into syllables so gracefully, that we find meaning 
for the music they make as we find faces in the coals 
and fairy palaces in the clouds. There is something 
very odd, though, about this mechanical talk. 

You have sometimes been in a train on the railroad 
when the engine was detached a long way from the 
station you were approaching? Well, you have no- 
ticed how quietly and rapidly the cars kept on, just 
as if the locomotive were drawing them? Indeed, 
you would not have suspected that you were travelling 
on the strength of a dead fact, if you had not seen the 
engine running away from you on a side-track. Upon 
my conscience, I believe some of these pretty women 
detach their minds entirely, sometimes, from their 
talk, — and, what is more, that we never know the 
difference. Their lips let off the fluty syllables just 
as their fingers would sprinkle the music-drops from 
their pianos ; unconscious habit turns the phrase of 
thought into words just as it does that of music into 
notes. — Well, they govern the world, for all that, — 
these sweet-lipped women, — because beauty is the 
index of a larger fact than wisdom. 



32 THE PROFESSOR 

— The Bombazine wanted an explanation. 
Madam, — said I, — wisdom is the abstract of the 

past, but beauty is the promise of the future. 

— All this, however, is not what I was going to say. 
Here am I, suppose, seated — we will say at a dinner- 
table — alongside of an intelligent EngHshman. We 
look in each other's faces, — we exchange a dozen 
words. One thing is settled: we mean not to offend 
each other, — to be perfectly courteous, — more than 
courteous ; for we are the entertainer and the enter- 
tained, and cherish particularly amiable feelings to 
each other. The claret is good ; and if our blood 
reddens a little with its warm crimson, we are none 
the less kind for it. 

— I don't think people that talk over their victuals 
are like to say anything very great, esrpecially if they 
get their heads muddled with strong drink before they 
begin jabberin'. 

The Bombazine uttered this with a sugary sour- 
ness, as if the words had been steeped in a solution 
of acetate of Ibad. — The boys of my time used to call 
a hit like this a " side-winder." 

— I must finish this woman. — 

Madam, — I said, — the Great Teacher seems to 
have been fond of talking as he sat at meat. Because 
this was a good while ago, in a far-off place, you for- 
get what the true fact of it was, — that those were real 
dinners, where people were hungry and thirsty, and 
where you met a very miscellaneous company. Prob- 
ably there was a great deal of loose talk among the 
guests ; at any rate, there was always wine, we may 
believe. 

Whatever may be the hygienic advantages or dis- 
advantages of wine, — and I for one, except for cer- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 33 

tain particular ends, believe in water, and, I blush to 
say it, in black tea, — there is no doubt about its being 
the grand specific against dull dinners. A score of 
people come together in all moods of mind and body. 
The problem is, in the space of one hour, more or 
less, to bring them all into the same condition of 
slightly exalted life. Food alone is enough for one 
person, perhaps, — talk, alone, for another ; but the 
grand equalizer and fraternizer, which works up the 
radiators to their maximum radiation, and the ab- 
sorbents to their maximum receptivity, is now just 
where it was when 

"The conscious water saw its Lord and blushed," 

— when six great vessels containing water, the whole 
amounting to more than a hogshead-full, were changed 
into the best of wine. I once wrote a song about 
wine, in which I spoke so warmly of it, that I was 
afraid some would think it was written iiiter pocula ; 
whereas it was composed in the bosom of my family, 
under the most tranquillizing domestic influences. 

— The divinity-student turned towards me, looking 
-mischievous. — Can you tell me, — he said, — who 
wrote a song for a temperance celebration once, of 
which the following is a verse .'' — 

Alas for the loved one, too gentle and fair 
The joys of the banquet to chasten and share ! 
Her eye lost its light that his goblet might shine, 
And the rose of her cheek was dissolved in his wine ! 

/did, — I answered. — What are you going to do 
about it ? — I will tell you another line I wrote long 
ago : — 

Don't be " consistent," — but be simply true. 



34 THE PROFESSOR 

The longer I live, the more T am satisfied of two 
things : first, that the truest lives are those that are 
cut rose-diamond-fashion, with many facets answer- 
ing to the many-planed aspects of the world about 
them ; secondly, that society is always trying in some 
way or other to grind us down to a single flat surface. 
It is hard work to resist this grinding-down action. 
— Now give me a chance. Better eternal and uni- 
versal abstinence than the brutalities of those days 
that made wives and mothers and daughters and sis- 
ters blush for those whom they should have honored, 
as they came reeling home from their debauches ! Yet 
better even excess than lying and hypocrisy ; and if 
wine is upon all our tables, let us praise it for its color 
and fragrance and social tendency, so far as it deserves, 
and not hug a bottle in the closet and pretend not 
to know the use of a wine-glass at a public dinner ! I 
think you will find that people who honestly mean to 
be true really contradict themselves much more rarely 
than those who try to be " consistent." But a great 
many things' we say can be made to appear contra- 
dictory, simply because they are partial views of a 
truth, and may often look unlike at first, as a front 
view of a face and its profile often do. 

Here is a distinguished divine, for whom I have 
great respect, for I owe^ him a charming hour at one 
of our literary anniversaries, and he has often spoken 
noble words ; but he holds up a remark of my friend 
the "Autocrat," — which I grieve to say he twice mis- 
quotes, by omitting the very word which gives it its 
significance, — the word fluid, intended to typify the 
mobility of the restricted will, — holds it up, I say, as 
if it attacked the reality of the self-determining princi- 
ple, instead of illustrating its limitations by an image. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 35 

Now I will not explain any farther, still less defend, 
and least of all attack, but simply quote a few lines 
from one of my friend's poems, printed more than 
ten years ago, and ask the distinguished gentleman 
where he. has ever asserted more strongly or abso- 
lutely the independent will of the "subcreative cen- 
tre," as my heretical friend has elsewhere called man. 

— Thought, conscience, will, to make them all thy own 
He rent a pillar from the eternal throne ! 

— Made in His image, thou must nobly dare 
The thorny crown of sovereignty to share. 

— Think not too meanly of thy low estate ; 
Thou hast a choice ; to choose is to create ! 

If he will look a little closely, he will see that the pro- 
file and the full-face views of the will are both true 
and perfectly consistent. 

Now let us come back, after this long digression, to 
the conversation with the intelligent Eiiglishman. 
We begin skirmishing with a few light ideas, — test- 
ing for thoughts, — as our electro-chemical friend, De 
Sauty, If there were such a person, would test for his 
xurrent; trying a little litmus-paper for acids, and 
then a slip of turmeric-paper for alkalies, as chemists 
do with unknown compounds ; flinging the lead, and 
looking at the shells and sands it brings up to find 
out whether we are like to keep in shallow water, or 
shall have to drop the deep-sea line; — in short, see- 
ing what we have to deal with. If the Englishman 
gets his Hs pretty well placed, he comes from one of 
the higher grades of the British social order, and we 
shall find him a good companion. 

But, after all, here is a great fact between us. We 
belong to two different civilizations, and, until we 



36 THE PROFESSOR 

recognize what separates us, we are talking like Pyra- 
mus and Thisbe, without any hole in the wall to talk 
through. Therefore, on the whole, if he were a su- 
perior fellow, incapable of mistaking it for personal 
conceit, I think I would let out the fact of the real 
American feeling about Old-World folks. They are 
children to us in certain points of view. They are 
playing with toys we have done with for whole gen- 
erations. That silly little drum they are always 
beating on, and the trumpet and the feather they 
make so much noise and cut such a figure with, we 
have not quite outgrown, but play with much less 
seriously and constantly than they do. Then there 
is a whole museum of wigs, and masks, and lace-coats, 
and gold-sticks, and grimaces, and phrases, which 
we laugh at honestly, without affectation, that are 
still used in the Old-World puppet-shows. I don't 
think we on our part ever understand the English- 
man's concentrated loyalty and specialized reverence. 
But then we do think more of a man, as such, (barring 
some little 'difficulties about race and complexion 
which the Englishman will touch us on presently,) 
than any people that ever lived did think of him. Our 
reverence is a great deal wider, if it is less intense. 
We have caste among us, to some extent, it is true ; 
but there is never a collar on the American wolf-dog 
such as you often see on the English mastiff, notwith- 
standing his robust, hearty individuality. 

This confronting of two civilizations is always a grand 
sensation to me ; it is like cutting through the isthmus 
and letting the two oceans swim into each other's laps. 
The trouble is, it is so difficult to let out the whole 
American nature without its self-assertion seeming 
to take a personal character. But I never enjoy the 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 37 

Englishman so much as when he talks of church and 
king like Manco Capac among the Peruvians. Then 
you get the real British flavor, which the cosmopolite 
Englishman loses. 

How much better this thorough interpenetration of 
ideas than a barren interchange of courtesies, or a bush- 
fighting argument, in which each man tries to cover as 
much of himself and expose as much of his opponent as 
the tangled thicket of the disputed ground will let him! 

— My thoughts flow in layers or strata, at least three 
deep. I follow a slow person's talk, and keep a per- 
fectly clear under-current of my own beneath it. Un- 
der both runs obscurely a consciousness belonging to 
a third train of reflections, independent of the two 
others. I will try to write out a mental movement in 
three parts. 

A. — First voice, or Mental Soprano, — thought fol- 
lows a woman talking, 

B. — Second voice, or Mental Barytone, — my run- 
ning accompaniment. 

C. — Third voice, or Mental Basso, — low grumble 
of an importunate self-repeating idea. 

A. — White lace, three skirts, looped with flowers, 
wreath of apple-blossoms, gold bracelets, diamond pin 
and ear-rings, the most delicious berthe you ever saw, 
white satin slippers — 

B. — Dense take her! What a fool she is! Hear 
her chatter ! (Look out of window just here. — Two 
pages and a half of description, if it were all written 
out, in one tenth of a second.) —Go ahead, old lady ! 
(Eye catches picture over fireplace.) There's that 
infernal family nose ! Came over in the " Mayflower " 



38 THE PROFESSOR 

on the first old fooPs face. Why don't they wear a 
ring in it ? 

C. — You'll be late at lecture, — late at lecture, — 
late, — late, — late — 

I observe that a deep layer of thought sometimes 
makes itself felt through the superincumbent strata, 
thus: — The usual single or double currents shall flow 
on, but there shall be an influence blending with them, 
disturbing them in an obscure way, until all at once I 
say, — Oh, there! I knew there was something troub- 
ling me, — and the thought which had been working 
through comes up to the surface clear, definite, and 
articulates itself, — a disagreeable duty, perhaps, or an 
unpleasant recollection. 

The inner world of thought and th^ outer world of 
events are alike in this, that they are both brimful. 
There is no space between consecutive thoughts, or 
between the never-ending series of actions. All pack 
tight, and mould their surfaces against each other, so 
that in the long run there is a wonderful average uni- 
formity in the forms of both thoughts and actions, — 
just as you find that cylinders crowded all become hex- 
agonal prisms, and spheres pressed together are formed 
into regular polyhedra. 

Every event that a ,man would master must be 
mounted on the run, and no man ever caught the 
reins of a thought except as it galloped by him. So, 
to carry out, with another comparison, my remark 
about the layers of thought, we may consider the mind, 
as it moves among thoughts or events, like a circus- 
rider whirling round with a great troop of horses. He 
can mount a fact or an idea, and guide it more or less 
completely, but he cannot stop it. So, as I said in 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 39 

another way at the beginning, he can stride two or 
three thoughts at once, but not break their steady walk, 
trot, or gallop. He can only take his foot from the 
saddle of one thought and put it on that of another. 

— What is the saddle of a thought? Why, a word, 
of course. — Twenty years after you have dismissed a 
thought, it suddenly wedges up to you through the 
press, as if it had been steadily galloping round and 
round all that time without a rider. 

The will does not act in the interspaces of thought, 
for there are no such interspaces, but simply steps from 
the back of one moving thought upon that of another. 

— I should like to ask, — said the divinity-student, 
— since we are getting into metaphysics, how you can 
admit space, if all things are in contact, and how you 
can admit time, if it is always 7iow to something.? 

— I thought it best not to hear this question. 

— I wonder if you know this class of philosophers 
in books or elsewhere. One of them makes his bow 
to the public, and exhibits an unfortunate truth ban- 
daged up so that it cannot stir hand or foot, — as help- 
less, apparently, and unable to take care of itself, as an 
Egyptian mummy. He then proceeds, with the air 
and method of a master, to take off the bandages. 
Nothing can be neater than the way in which he does 
it. But as he takes off layer after layer, the truth seems 
to grow smaller and smaller, and some of its outlines 
begin to look like something we have seen before. 
At last, when he has got them all off, and the truth 
struts out naked, we recognize it as a diminutive and 
familiar acquaintance whom we have known in the 
streets all our lives. The fact is, the philosopher has 
coaxed the truth into his study and put all those ban- 
dages on ; of course it is not very hard for him to take 



40 THE PROFESSOR 

them off. Still, a great many people like to watch the 
process, — he does it so neatly! 

Dear ! dear ! I am ashamed to write and talk, 
sometimes, when I see how those functions of the 
large-brained, thumb-opposing plantigrade are abused 
by my fellow-vertebrates, — perhaps by myself. How 
they spar for wind, instead of hitting from the shoul- 
der ! 

— The young fellow called John arose and placed 
himself in a neat fighting attitude. — Fetch on the 
fellah that makes them long words ! — he said, — and 
planted a straight hit with the right fist in the con- 
cave palm of the left hand with a click like a cup and 
ball. — You small boy there, hurry up that " Webster's 
Unabridged ! " 

The little gentleman with the malformation, before 
described, shocked the propriety of the breakfast- 
table by a loud utterance of three words, of which the 
two last were " Webster's Unabridged,'' and the first 
was an emphatic monosyllable. — Beg pardon, — he 
added, — forgot myself. But let us have an English 
dictionary, if we are to have any. I don't believe in 
clipping the coin of the realm. Sir ! If I put a weather- 
cock on my house. Sir, I want it to tell which way 
the wind blows up aloft, — off from the prairies to the 
ocean, or off from the, ocean to the prairies, or any 
way it wants to blow ! I don't want a weathercock 
with a winch in an old gentleman's study that he can 
take hold of and turn, so that the vane shall point 
west when the great wind overhead is blowing east 
with all its might. Sir ! Wait till we give you a dic- 
tionary. Sir ! It takes Boston to do that thing. Sir ! 

— Some folks think water can't run down-hill any- 
where out of Boston, — remarked the Koh-i-noor. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 41 

I don't know what sotne folks thiiik so well as I 
know what some fools say, — rejoined the Little Gen- 
tleman. — If importing most dry goods made the best 
scholars, I dare say you would know where to look 
for 'em. — Mr. Webster couldn't spell, Sir, or wouldn't 
spell. Sir, — at any rate, he didn't spell ; and the 
end of it was a fight between the owners of some 
copyrights and the dignity of this noble language 
which we have inherited from our English fathers. 
Language ! — the blood of the soul. Sir ! into which 
our thoughts run and out of which they grow ! We 
know what a word is worth here in Boston. Young 
Sam Adams got up on the stage at Commencement, 
out at Cambridge there, with his gown on, the Gov- 
ernor and Council looking on in the name of his 
Majesty, King George the Second, and the girls look- 
ing down out of the galleries, and taught people how 
to spell a word that wasn't in the Colonial diction- 
aries ! R-e^ re, s-i-s, s/s, t-a-11-c-e, tajice, Resistance! 
That was in '43, and it was a good many years before 
the Boston boys began spelling it with their muskets ; 
— but when they did begin, they spelt it so loud that 
the old bedridden women in the English almhouses 
heard every syllable ! Yes, yes, yes, — it was a good 
while before those other two Boston boys got the 
class so far along that it could spell those two hard 
words. Independence and Union ! I tell you what, 
Sir, there are a thousand lives, aye, sometimes a 
million, go to get a new word into a language that 
is worth speaking. We know what language means 
too well here in Boston to play tricks with it. We 
never make a new word till we have made a new 
thing or a new thought. Sir ! When we shaped the 
new mould of this continent, we had to make a few. 



42 THE PROFESSOR 

When, by God's permission, we abrogated the primal 
curse of maternity, we had to make a word or two. 
The cutwater of this great Leviathan clipper, the 
Occidental, — this thirty-masted wind-and-steam 
wave-crusher, — must throw a little spray over the 
human vocabulary as it splits the waters of a new 
world's destiny ! 

He rose as he spoke, until his stature seemed to 
swell into the fair human proportions. His feet must 
have been on the upper round of his high chair ; — 
that was the only way I could account for it. 

Puts her through fust-rate, — said the young fellow 
whom the boarders call John. 

The venerable and kind-looking old gentleman 
who sits opposite said he remembered Sam Adams 
as Governor. An old man in a brpwn coat. Saw 
him take the Chair on Boston Common. Was a boy 
then, and remembers sitting on the fence in front of 
the old Hancock house. Recollects he had a glazed 
'lection-bun, and sat eating it and looking down on 
to the Common. Lalocks flowered late that year, 
and he got a great bunch off from the bushes in the 
Hancock front-yard. 

Them 'lection buns are no go, — said the young 
man John, so called. — I know the trick. Give a fel- 
lah a fo'penny bun in the mornin', an' he downs the 
whole of it. In about 'an hour it swells up in his 
stomach as big as a football, and his feelin's sp'ilt for 
that day. That 's the way to stop off a young one 
from eatin' up all the 'lection dinner. 

Salem ! Salem ! not Boston, — shouted the litde 
man. 

But the Koh-i-noor laughed a great rasping laugh, 
and the boy Benjamin Franklin looked sharp at his 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 43 

mother, as if he remembered the bun-experiment as 
a part of his past personal history. 

The Httle gentleman was holding a fork in his left 
hand. He stabbed a boulder of home-made bread 
with it, mechanically, and looked at it as if it ought 
to shriek. It did not, — but he sat as if watching it. 

— Language is a solemn thing, — I said. — It grows 
out of life, — out of its agonies and ecstasies, its wants 
and its weariness. Every language is a temple, in 
which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined. 
Because time softens its outlines and rounds the 
sharp angles of its cornices, shall a fellow take a pick- 
axe to help time ? Let me tell you what comes of 
meddling with things that can take care of themselves. 
— A friend of mine had a watch given him, when he 
was a boy, — a " bull's eye," with a loose silver case 
that came off like an oyster-shell from its contents ; 
you know them, — the cases that you hang on your 
thumb, while the core, or the real watch, lies in your 
hand as naked as a peeled apple. Well, he began 
with taking off the case, and so on from one liberty 
to another, until he got it fairly open, and there were 
the works, as good as if they were alive, — crown- 
wheel, balance-wheel, and all the rest. All right ex- 
cept one thing, — there was a confounded little hair 
had got tangled round the balance-wheel. So my 
young Solomon got a pair of tweezers, and caught 
hold of the hair very nicely, and pulled it right 
out, without touching any of the wheels, — when, — 
buzzzZZZ ! and the watch had done up twenty-four 
hours in double magnetic-telegraph time ! — The 
English language was wound up to run some thou- 
sands of years, I trust ; but if everybody is to be 
pulling at everything he thinks is a hair, our grand- 



44 THE PROFESSOR 

children will have to make the discovery that it is a 
\\2S.x-sprmg^ and the old Anglo-Norman souFs-time- 
keeper will run down, as so many other dialects have 
done before it. I can't stand this meddling any bet- 
ter than you, Sir. But we have a great deal to be 
proud of in the lifelong labors of that old lexicog- 
rapher, and we mustn't be ungrateful. Besides, don't 
let us deceive ourselves, — the war of the dictionaries 
is only a disguised rivalry of cities, colleges, and 
especially of publishers. After all, it is likely that 
the language will shape itself by larger forces than 
phonography and dictionary-making. You may spade 
up the ocean as much as you like, and harrow it after- 
wards, if you can, — but the moon will still lead the 
tides, and the winds will form their surface. 

— Do you know Richardson's Dictionary? — I 
said to my neighbor the divinity-student. 

Haow? — said the divinity-student. — He colored, 
as he noticed on my face a twitch in one of the 
muscles which tuck up the corner of the mouth, 
{zygof/iaticuSi jnajor,) and which I could not hold 
back from making a little movement on its own ac- 
count. 

It was too late. — A country-boy, lassoed when he 
was a half-grown colt. Just as good as a city-boy, 
and in some ways, perhaps, better, — but caught a 
little too old not to carry some marks of his earlier 
ways of life. Foreigners, who have talked a strange 
tongue half their lives, return to the language of their 
childhood in their dying hours. Gentlemen in fine 
linen, and scholars in large libraries, taken by surprise, 
or in a careless moment, will sometimes let slip a word 
they knew as boys in homespun and have not spoken 
since that time, — but it lay there under all their cul- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 45 

ture. That is one way you may know the country-boys 
after they have grown rich or celebrated ; another is 
by the odd old family names, particularly those of the 
Hebrew prophets, which the good old people have 
saddled them with. 

— Boston has enough of England about it to make 
a good English dictionary, — said that fresh-looking 
youth whom I have mentioned as sitting at the right 
upper corner of the table. 

I turned and looked him full in the face, — for the 
pure, manly intonations arrested me. The voice was 
youthful, but full of character. — I suppose some per- 
sons have a peculiar susceptibility in the matter of 
voice. — Hear this. 

Not long after the American Revolution, a young 
lady was sitting in her father's chaise in a street 
of this town of Boston. She overheard a little girl 
talking or singing, and was mightily taken with the 
tones of her voice. Nothing would satisfy her but she 
must have that little girl come and live in her father's 
house. So the child came, being then nine years old. 
Until her marriage she remained under the same roof 
with the young lady. Her children became succes- 
sively inmates of the lady's dwelling; and now, 
seventy years, or thereabouts, since the young lady 
heard the child singing, one of that child's children 
and one of her grandchildren are with her in that 
home, where she, no longer young, except in heart, 
passes her peaceful days. — Three generations linked 
together by so light a breath of accident ! 

I liked the sound of this youth's voice, I said, and 
his look when I came to observe him a little more 
closely. His complexion had something better than 
the bloom and freshness which had first attracted me : 



46 THE PROFESSOR 

— it had that diffused tone which is a sure index of 
wholesome lusty life. A fine liberal style of nature it 
seemed to be : hair crisped, moustache springing thick 
and dark, head firmly planted, lips finished, as one 
commonly sees them in gentlemen's families, a pupil 
well contracted, and a mouth that opened frankly with 
a white flash of teeth that looked as if they could 
serve him as they say Ethan Allen's used to serve their 
owner, — to draw nails with. This is the kind of fel- 
low to walk a frigate's deck and bowl his broadsides 
into the " Gadlant Thudnder-bomb," or any forty- 
portholed adventurer who would like to exchange a 
few tons of iron compliments. — I don't know what 
put this into my head, for it was not till some time 
afterward I learned the young fellow had been in the 
naval school at Annapolis. Something had happened 
to change his plan of life, and he was now studying 
engineering and architecture in Boston. 

When the youth made the short remark which drew 
my attention to him, the little deformed gentleman 
turned round' and took a long look at him. 

Good for the Boston boy ! — he said. 

I am not a Boston boy, — said the youth, smiling, 

— I am a Marylander. 

I don't care where you come from, — we'll make a 
Boston man of you, — said the little gentleman. — Pray, 
what part of Maryland did you come from, and how 
shall I call you ? 

The poor youth had to speak pretty loud, as he was 
at the right upper corner of the table, and the little 
gentleman next the lower left-hand corner. His face 
flushed a little, but he answered pleasantly, — telling 
who he was, as if the little man's infirmity gave him a 
right to ask any questions he wanted to. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 47 

Here is the place for you to sit, — said the little 
gentleman, pointing to the vacant chair next his own 
at the corner. 

You Ve go'n' to have a young lady next you, if you 
wait till to-morrow, — said the landlady to him. 

He did not reply, but I had a fancy that he changed 
color. It can't be that he has susceptibilities with ref- 
erence to a contingent young lady ! It can't be that 
he has had experiences which make him sensitive ! 
Nature could not be quite so cruel as to set a heart 
throbbing in that poor little cage of ribs ! There is no 
use in wasting notes of admiration. I must ask the 
landlady about him. 

These are some of the facts she furnished. — Has 
not been long with her. Brought a sight of furniture, — 
couldn't hardly get some of it upstairs. Hasn't seemed 
particularly attentive to the ladies. The Bombazine 
(whom she calls Cousin something or other) has tried 
to enter into conversation with him, but retired with 
the impression that he was indifferent to ladies' so- 
ciety. Paid his bill the other day without saying a 
word alDout it. Paid it in gold, — had a great heap of 
-twenty-dollar pieces. Hires her best room. Thinks 
he is a very nice little man, but lives dreadful lonely 
up in his chamber. Wants the care . of some capable 
nuss. Never pitied anybody more in her life, — 
never see a more interestin' person. 

— My intention was, when I began making these 
notes, to let them consist principally of conversations 
between myself and the other boarders. So they 
will, very probably ; but my curiosity is excited about 
this little boarder of ours, and my reader must not be 
disappointed, if I sometimes interrupt a discussion to 
give an account of whatever fact or traits I may dis- 



48 THE PROFESSOR 

cover about him. It so happens that his room is next 
to mine, and I have the opportunity of observing many 
of his ways without any active movements of curiosity. 
That his room contains heavy furniture, that he is a 
restless little body and is apt to be up late, that he 
talks to himself, and keeps mainly to himself, is 
nearly all I have yet found out. 

One curious circumstance happened lately, which 
I mention without drawing an absolute inference. — 
Being at the studio of a sculptor with whom I am 
acquainted, the other day, I saw a remarkable cast of 
a left arm. On my asking where the model came 
from, he said it was taken direct from the arm of a 
deformed perso7i^ who had employed one of the 
Italian moulders to make the cast. It was a curious 
case, it should seem, of one beautlAil limb upon a 
frame otherwise singularly imperfect. — I have repeat- 
edly noticed this little gentleman's use of his left 
arm. Can he have furnished the model I saw at the 
sculptor's ? 

— So we kre to have a new boarder to-morrow. I 
hope there will be something pretty and pleasing 
about her. A woman with a creamy vdice, and fin- 
ished in alto rilievOy would be a variety in the board- 
ing-house, — a little more marrow and a little less sinew 
than our landlady and her daughter and the bomba- 
zine-clad female, all of whom are of the turkey-drum- 
stick style of organization. I don't mean that these 
are our only female companions ; but the rest be- 
ing conversational non-combatants, mostly still, sad 
feeders, who take in their food as locomotives take in 
wood and water, and then wither away from the table 
like blossoms that never come to fruit, I have not yet 
referred to them as individuals. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 49 

I wonder what kind of young person we shall see 
in that empty chair to-morrow ! 

— I read this song to the boarders after breakfast 
the other morning. It was written for our fellows ; — 
you know who they are, of course. 



THE BOYS. 

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys ? 
If there has, take him out, without making a noise! 
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite ! 
Old Time is a liar ! We 're twenty to-night ! 

We 're twenty ! We 're twenty ! Who says we are more ? 
He 's tipsy, — young jackanapes ! — show him the door ! — 
" Gray temples at twenty ? " — Yes ! white, if we please ; 
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there 's nothing can freeze ! 

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake ! 
Look close, — you will see not a sign of a flake ; 
We want some new garlands for those we have shed, — 
And these are white roses in place of the red ! 

We 've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told. 
Of talking (in public) as if we were old; — 
That boy we call " Doctor," and this we call "Judge; " — 
It 's a neat little fiction, — of course it 's all fudge. 

That fellow 's the " Speaker," — the one on the right; 
" Mr. Mayor," my young one, how are you to-night ? 
That 's our " Member of Congress," we say when we chaff; 
There 's the " Reverend " What 's his name ? — don't make me 
laugh ! 

That boy with the grave mathematical look 
Made believe he had written a wonderful book. 



50 THE PROFESSOR 

And the ROYAL SOCIETY thought it was true ! 

So they chose him right in ; a good joke it was, too ! 

There 's a boy, — we pretend, — with a three-decker-brain, 

That could harness a team with a logical chain ; 

When he spoke for our manhood in syllabled fire, 

We called him " The Justice," — but now he 's " The Squire.' 

And there 's a nice youngster of excellent pith, — 
Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith, — 
But he shouted a song for the brave and the free, — 
— Just read on his medal, — " My country, — of thee ! " 

You hear that boy laughing ? —you think he 's all fun, — 
But the angels laugh, too, at the good he has done; 
The children laugh loud as they troop to his call. 
And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all ! 

Yes, we 're boys, — always playing with tongue or with pen, - 
And I sometimes have asked, — Shall we ever be men? 
Shall we always be youthful and laughing and gay, 
Till the last dear companion drops smiling away? 

Then here 's ^o our boyhood, its gold and its gray! 
The stars of its Winter, the dews of its May ! 
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys. 
Dear Father, take care of thy children, the Boys! 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 51 



III. 



[The Professor talks with the Reader. He tells a 
You7tg GirVs Story.'] 

When the elements that went to the making of the 
first man, father of mankind, had been withdrawn 
from the world of unconscious matter, the balance of 
creation was disturbed. The materials that go to the 
making of one woman were set free by the abstraction 
from inanimate nature of one man's-worth of mascu- 
line constituents. These combined to make our first 
mother, by a logical necessity involved in the previous 
creation of our common father. All this, mythically, 
illustratively, and by no means doctrinally or polemi- 
cally. 

The man implies the woman, you will understand. 
The excellent gentleman whom I had the pleasut*e of 
■setting right in a trifling matter a few weeks ago be- 
lieves in the frequent occurrence of miracles at the 
present day. So do I. I believe, if you could find 
an uninhabited coral-reef island, in the middle of the 
Pacific Ocean, with plenty of cocoa-palms and bread- 
fruit on it, and put a handsome young fellow, like our 
Marylander, ashore upon it, if you touched there a 
year afterwards, you would find him walking under 
the palm-trees arm in arm with a pretty woman. 

Where would she come from ? 

Oh, that 's the miracle ! 

— I was just as certain, when I saw that fine, high- 



52 THE PROFESSOR 

colored youth at the upper right-hand corner of our 
table, that there would appear some fitting feminine 
counterpart to him, as if I had been a clairvoyant, 
seeing it all beforehand. 

— I have a fancy that those Marylanders are just 
about near enough to the sun to ripen well. — How 
some of us fellows remember Joe and Harry, Balti- 
moreans, both ! Joe, with his cheeks like lady-apples, 
and his eyes like black-heart cherries, and his teeth 
like the whiteness of the flesh of cocoa-nuts, and his 
laugh that set the chandelier-drops rattling overhead, 
as we sat at our sparkling banquets in those gay 
times ! Harry, champion, by acclamation, of the 
College heavy-weights, broad-shouldered, bull-necked, 
square-jawed, six feet and trimmings, a little science, 
lots of pluck,- good-natured as a steet in peace, formi- 
dable as a red-eyed bison in the crack of hand-to- 
hand battle ! Who forgets the great muster-day, and 
the collision of the classic with the democratic forces ? 
The huge butcher, fifteen stone, — two hundred and 
ten pounds,' — good weight, — steps out like Telamo- 
nian Ajax, defiant. No words from Harry, the Balti- 
morean, — one of the quiet sort, who strike first, and do 
the talking, if there is any, afterwards. No words, but, 
in the place thereof, a clean, straight, hard hit, which 
took effect with a spank like the explosion of a percus- 
sion-cap, knocking the' slayer of beeves down a sand- 
bank, — followed, alas ! by the too impetuous youth, so 
that both rolled down together, and the conflict ter- 
minated in one of those inglorious and inevitable 
Yankee clinches followed by a general ijielee which 
make our native fistic encounters so different from 
such admirably-ordered contests as that which I once 
saw at an English fair, where everything was done 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 53 

decently and in order, and the fight began and ended 
with such grave propriety, that a sporting parson need 
hardly have hesitated to open it with a devout peti- 
tion, and, after it was over, dismiss the ring with a 
benediction. 

I can't help telling one more story about this great 
field-day, though it is the most wanton and irrelevant 
digression. But all of us have a little speck of fight 
underneath our peace and good-will to men, — just 
a speck, for revolutions and great emergencies, you 
know, — so that we should not submit to be trodden 
quite flat by the first heavy-heeled aggressor that 
came along. You can tell a portrait from an ideal 
head, I suppose, and a true story from one spun out 
of the writer's invention. See whether this sounds 
true or not. 

Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin sent out two fine blood- 
horses, Barefoot and Serab by name, to Massachusetts, 
something before the time I am talking of. With 
them came a Yorkshire groom, a stocky little fellow, 
in velvet breeches, who made that mysterious hissing 
noise, traditionary in English stables, when he rubbed 
down the silken-skinned racers, in great perfection. 
After the soldiers had come from the muster-field, and 
some of the companies were on the village-common, 
there was still some skirmishing between a few indi- 
viduals who had not had the fight taken out of them. 
The little Yorkshire groom thought he must serve out 
somebody., So he threw himself into an approved 
scientific attitude, and, in brief, emphatic language, 
expressed his urgent anxiety to accommodate any 
classical young gentleman who chose to consider him- 
self a candidate for his attentions. I don't suppose 
there were many of the college boys that would 



54 THE PROFESSOR 

have been a match for him in the art which English- 
men know so much more of than Americans, for the 
most part. However, one of the Sophomores, a very 
quiet, peaceable fellow, just stepped out of the crowd, 
and, running straight at the groom, as he stood there, 
sparring away, struck him with the sole of his foot, 
a straight blow, as if it had been with his fist, — and 
knocked him heels over head and senseless, so that 
he had to be carried off from the field. This ugly 
way of hitting is the great trick of the French savate, 
which is not commonly thought able to stand its 
ground against English pugilistic science. — These 
are old recollections, with not much to recommend 
them, except, perhaps, a dash of life, which may be 
worth a little something. 

The young Marylander brought them all up, you 
may remember. He recalled to my mind those two 
splendid pieces of vitality I told you of. Both have 
been long dead. How often we see these great red 
flaring flambeaux of life blown out, as it were, by a 
puff of wind, * — and the little, single-wicked night-lamp 
of being, which some white-faced and attenuated in- 
valid shades with trembling fingers, flickering on while 
they go out one after another, until its glimmer is all 
that is left to us of the generation it belonged to ! 

I told you that I was perfectly sure, beforehand, we 
should find some pleas'ing girlish or womanly shape 
to fill the blank at our table and match the dark-haired 
youth at the upper corner. 

There she sits, at the very opposite corner, just as 
far off as accident could put her from this handsome 
fellow, by whose side she ought, of course, to be sit- 
ting. One of the " positive '^ blondes, as my friend, 
you may remember, used to call them. Tawny- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 55 

haired, amber-eyed, full-throated, skin as white as a 
blanched almond. Looks dreamy to me, not self- 
conscious, though a black ribbon round her neck sets 
it off as a Marie-Antoinette's diamond necklace could 
not do. So in her dress, there is a harmony of tints 
that looks as if an artist had run his eye over her and 
given a hint or two like the finishing touch to a pic- 
ture. I can't help being struck with her, for she is 
at once rounded and fine in feature, looks calm, as 
blondes are apt to, and as if she might run wild, if she 
were trifled with. — It is just as I knew it would be, — 
and anybody can see that our young Marylander will 
be dead in love with her in a week. 

Then if that little man would only turn out im- 
mensely rich and have the good-nature to die and leave 
them all his money, it would be as nice as a three- 
volume novel. 

The Little Gentleman is in a flurry, I suspect, with 
the excitement of having such a charming neighbor 
next him. I judge so mainly by his silence and by a 
certain rapt and serious look on his face, as if he 
were thinking of something that had happened, or 
that might happen, or that ought to happen, — or how 
beautiful her young life looked, or how hardly Nature 
had dealt with him, or something which struck him 
silent, at any rate. I made several conversational 
openings for him, but he did not fire up as he often 
does. I even went so far as to indulge in a fling at 
the State House, which, as we all know, is in truth 
a very imposing structure, covering less ground than 
St. Peter's, but of similar general effect. The little 
man looked up, but did not reply to my taunt. He 
said to the young lady, however, that the State House 
was the Parthenon of our Acropolis, which seemed to 



56 THE PROFESSOR 

please her, for she smiled, and he reddened a little, — 
so I thought. I don't think it right to watch persons 
who are the subjects of special infirmity, — but we all 
do it. 

I see that they have crowded the chairs a little at 
that end of the table, to make room for another new- 
comer of the lady sort. A well-mounted, middle-aged 
preparation, wearing her hair without a cap, — pretty 
wide in the parting, though, — contours vaguely hinted, 
— features very quiet, — says little as yet, but seems to 
keep her eye on the young lady, as if having some re- 
sponsibility for her. — 

My record is a blank for some days after this. In 
the mean time I have contrived to make out the per- 
son and the story of our young lady^*who, according 
to appearances, ought to furnish us a heroine for a 
boarding-house romance before a year is out. It is 
very curious that she should prove connected with a 
person many of us have heard of. Yet, curious as it 
is, I have been a hundred times struck with the cir- 
cumstance that the most remote facts are constantly 
striking each other ; just as vessels starting from 
ports thousands of miles apart pass close to each 
other in the naked breadth of the ocean, nay, some- 
times even touch, in the dark, with a crack of timbers, 
a gurgling of water, a cry of startled sleepers, — a cry 
mysteriously echoed in warning dreams, as the wife 
of some Gloucester fisherman, some coasting skipper, 
wakes with a shriek, calls the name of her husband, 
and sinks back to uneasy slumbers upon her lonely 
pillow, — a widow. 

Oh, these mysterious meetings ! Leaving all the 
vague, waste, endless spaces of the washing desert, 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 57 

the ocean-steamer and the fishing-smack sail straight 
towards each other as if they ran in grooves ploughed 
for them in the waters from the beginning of creation ! 
Not only things and events, but our own thoughts, 
are so full of these surprises, that, if there were a 
reader in my parish who did not recognize the famil- 
iar occurrence of what I am now going to mention, I 
should think it a case for the missionaries of the So- 
ciety for the Propagation of Intelligence among the 
Comfortable Classes. 

There are about as many twins in the births of 
thought as of children. For the first time in your 
lives you learn some fact or come across some idea. 
Within an hour, a day, a week, that same fact or idea 
strikes you from another quarter. It seems as if it 
had passed into space and bounded back upon you as 
an echo from the blank wall that shuts in the world of 
thought. Yet no possible connection exists between 
the two channels by which the thought or the fact 
arrived. Let me give an infinitesimal illustration. 

One of the Boys mentioned, the other evening, in 
the course of a very pleasant poem he read us, a little 
trick of the Commons table-boarders, which I, nour- 
ished at the parental board, had never heard of. 
Young fellows being always hungry — Allow me to 
stop dead-short, in order to utter an aphorism which 
has been forming itself in one of the blank interior 
spaces of my intelligence, like a crystal in the cavity 
of a geode. 



Aphorism by the Professor. 

In order to know whether a human being is young 
or old, offer it food of different kinds at short inter- 



58 THE PROFESSOR 

vals. If young, it will eat anything at any hour of the 
day or night. If old, it observes stated periods, and 
you might as well attempt to regulate the time of 
high-water to suit a fishing-party as to change these 
periods. 

The crucial experiment is this. Offer a bulky and 
boggy bun to the suspected individual just ten minutes 
before dinner. If this is eagerly accepted and de- 
voured, the fact of youth is established. If the sub- 
ject of the question starts back and expresses surprise 
and incredulity, as if you could not possibly be in 
earnest, the fact of maturity is no less clear. 

— Excuse me, — I return to my story of the Com- 
mons-table. — Young fellows being always hungry, 
and tea and dry toast being the meagre fare of the 
evening meal, it was a trick of some* of the Boys to 
impale a slice of meat upon a fork, at dinner-time, and 
stick the fork holding it beneath the table, so that 
they could get it at tea-time. The dragons that 
guarded this, table of the Hesperides found out the 
trick at last, and kept a sharp look-out for missing 
forks ; — they knew where to find one, if it was not in 
its place. — Now the odd thing was, that, after wait- 
ing so many years to hear of this college trick, I should 
hear it mentioned a secojid time within the same 
twenty-four hours by a- college youth of the present 
generation. Strange, but true. And so it has hap- 
pened to me and to every person, often and often, to 
be hit in rapid succession by these twinned facts or 
thoughts, as if they were linked like chain-shot. 

I was going to leave the simple reader to wonder 
over this, taking it as an unexplained marvel. I think, 
however, I will turn over a furrow of subsoil in it. — 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 59 

The explanation is, of course, that in a great many 
thoughts there must be a few coincidences, and these 
instantly arrest our attention. Now we shall proba- 
bly never have the least idea of the enormous number 
of impressions which pass through our consciousness, 
until in some future life we see the photographic rec- 
ord of our thoughts and the stereoscopic picture of 
our actions. There go more pieces to make up a 
conscious life or a living body than you think for. 
Why, some of you were surprised when a friend of 
mine told you there were fifty-eight separate pieces in 
a fiddle. How many "swimming glands" — solid, 
organized, regularly formed, rounded disks, taking an 
active part in all your vital processes, part and parcel, 
each one of them, of your corporeal being — do you 
suppose are whirled along, like pebbles in a stream, 
with the blood which warms your frame and colors 
your cheeks ? — A noted German physiologist spread 
out a minute drop of blood, under the microscope, in 
narrow streaks, and counted the globules, and then 
made a calculation. The counting by the micrometer 
took him a week. — You have, my full-grown friend, 
of these little couriers in crimson or scarlet livery, 
running on your vital errands day and night as long 
as you live, sixty-five billions, five hundred and sev- 
enty thousand millions. Errors excepted. — Did I 
hear some gentleman say, "Doubted?" — I am the 
Professor. I sit in my chair with a petard under it 
that will blow me through the sky-light of my lecture- 
room, if I do not know what I am talking about and 
whom I am quoting. 

Now, my dear friends, who are putting your hands 
to your foreheads, and saying to yourselves that you 
feel a little confused, as if you had been waltzing until 



6o THE PROFESSOR 

things began to whirl slightly round you, is it possible 
that you do not clearly apprehend the exact connec- 
tion of all that I have been saying, and its bearing on 
what is now to come ? Listen, then. The number of 
these living elements in our bodies illustrates the in- 
calculable multitude of our thoughts ; the number of 
our thoughts accounts for those frequent coincidences 
spoken of; these coincidences in the world of thought 
illustrate those which we constantly observe in the 
world of outward events, of which the presence of 
the young girl now at our table, and proving to be 
the daughter of an old acquaintance some of us may 
remember, is the special example which led me through 
this labyrinth of reflections, and finally lands me at 
the commencement of this young girPs story, which, 
as I said, I have found the time and felt the interest 
to learn something of, and which I think I can tell 
without wronging the unconscious subject of my brief 
delineation. 



' IRIS. 

You remember, perhaps, in some papers published 
awhile ago, an odd poem written by an old Latin 
tutor? He brought up at the verb aino^ I love, as 
all of us do, and by and by Nature opened her great 
living dictionary for him at the wordy^Z/Vz, a daughter. 
The poor man was greatly perplexed in choosing a 
name for her. Lucretia and Virginia were the first 
that he thought of; but then came up those pictured 
stories of Titus Livius, which he could never read 
without crying, though he had read them a hundred 
times. 

— Lucretia sending for her husband and her father, 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 6 1 

each to bring one friend with him, and awaiting them 
in her chamber. To them her wrongs briefly. Let 
them see to the wretch, — she will take care of her- 
self. Then the hidden knife flashes out and sinks 
into her heart. She sHdes from her seat, and falls 
dying. " Her husband and her father cry aloud." — 
No, — not Lucretia. 

— Virginius, — a brown old soldier, father of a nice 
giri. She engaged to a very promising young man 
Decemvir Appius takes a violent fancy to her, — must 
have her at any rate. Hires a lawyer to present the 
arguments in favor of the view that she was another 
man's daughter. There used to be lawyers in Rome 
that would do such things. — All right. There are 
two sides to everything. Audi alteram partem. The 
legal gentleman has no opinion, — he only states the 
evidence. — A doubtful case. Let the young lady be 
under the protection of the Honorable Decemvir until 
It can be looked up thoroughly. —Father thinks it 
best, on the whole, to give in. Will explain the mat- 
ter, if the young lady and her maid will step this way. 
T/iat IS the explanation, — a stab with a butcher's 
knife, snatched from a stall, meant for other lambs 
than this poor bleeding Virginia ! 

The old man thought over the story. Then he 
must have one look at the original. So he took 
down the first volume and read it over. When he 
came to that part where it tells how the young gen- 
tleman she was engaged to and a friend of his took up 
the poor giri's bloodless shape and carried it throu<rh 
the street, and how all the women followed, wailing 
and asking if that was what their daugliters were com- 
ing to, — if that was what they were to get for beine 
good giris, — he melted down into his accustomed 



62 THE PROFESSOR 

tears of pity and grief, and, through them all, of de- 
light at the charming Latin of the narrative. But it 
was impossible to call his child Virginia. He could 
never look at her without thinking she had a knife 
sticking in her bosom. 

Dido would be a good name, and a fresh one. She 
was a queen, and the founder of a great city. Her 
story had been immortalized by the greatest of poets, 
— for the old Latin tutor clove to " Virgilius Maro," 
as he called him, as closely as ever Dante did in his 
memorable journey. So he took down his Virgil, — 
it was the smooth-leafed, open-lettered quarto of Bas- 
kerville, — and began reading the loves and mishaps 
of Dido. It wouldn't do. A lady who had not learned 
discretion by experience, and came to an evil end. 
He shook his head, as he sadly repeated, 

" — misera ante diem, subitoque accensa furore; " 

but when he came to the lines, 

" Erg9 Iris croceis per coelum roscida pennis 
Mille trahens varies adverse Sole colores," 

he jumped up with a great exclamation, which the 
particular recording angel who heard it pretended not 
to understand, or it might have gone hard with the 
Latin tutor some time or other. 

'■''Iris shall be her 'name ! " — he said. So her 
name was Iris. 

— The natural end of a tutor is to perish by starva- 
tion. It is only a question of time, just as with the 
burning of college libraries. These all burn up sooner 
or later, provided they are not housed in brick or stone 
and iron. I don't mean that you will see in the reg- 
istry of deaths that this or that particular tutor died 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. ^l 

of well-marked, uncomplicated starvation. They i7iay, 
even, in extreme cases, be carried off by a thin, wa- 
tery kind of apoplexy, which sounds very well in the 
returns, but means little to those who know that it is 
only debility settling on the head. Generally, how- 
ever, they fade and waste away under various pretexts, 
— calling it dyspepsia, consumption, and so on, to put 
a decent appearance upon the case and keep up the 
credit of the family and the institution where they 
have passed through the successive stages of inanition. 
In some cases it takes a great many years to kill a 
tutor by the process in question. You see, they do 
get food and clothes and fuel, in appreciable quantities, 
such as they are. You will even notice rows of books 
in their rooms, and a picture or two,— things that 
look as if they had surplus money ; but these superflui- 
ties are the water of crystallization to scholars, and 
you can never get them away till the poor fellows 
effloresce into dust. Do not be deceived. The tutor 
breakfasts on coffee made of beans, edulcorated with 
milk watered to the verge of transparency ; his mutton 
IS tough and elastic, up to the moment when it be- 
- comes tired out and tasteless ; his coal is a sullen, 
sulphurous anthracite, which rusts into ashes, rather 
than burns, in the shallow grate ; .his flimsy broad- 
cloth is too thin for winter and too thick for summer. 
The greedy lungs of fifty hot-blooded boys suck the 
oxygen from the air he breathes in his recitation-room. 
In short, he undergoes a process of gentle and gradual 
starvation. 

— The mother of little Iris was not called Electra, 
like hers of the old story, neither was her grandfather 
Oceanus. Her blood-name, which she gave away 
with her heart to the Latin tutor, was a plain old Eng- 



64 THE PROFESSOR 

lish one, and her water-name was Hannah, beautiful 
as recalling the mother of Samuel, and admirable as 
reading equally well from the initial letter forwards 
and from the terminal letter backwards. The poor 
lady, seated with her companion at the chess-board of 
matrimony, had but just pushed forward her one little 
white pawn upon an empty square, when the Black 
Knight, that cares nothing for castles or kings or 
queens, swooped down upon her and swept her from 
the larger board of life. 

The old Latin tutor put a modest blue stone at the 
head of his late companion, with her name and age 
and Eheit I upon it, — a smaller one at her feet, with 
initials ; and left her by herself, to be rained and 
snowed on, — which is a hard thing to do for those 
whom we have cherished tenderly. 

About the time that the lichens, falling on the 
stone, like drops of water,, had spread into fair, round 
rosettes, the tutor had starved into a slight cough. 
Then he began to draw the buckle of his black 
pantaloons a (little tighter, and took in another reef in 
his never-ample waistcoat. His temples got a little 
hollow, and the contrasts of color in his cheeks more 
vivid than of old. After a while his walks fatigued 
him, and he was tired, and breathed hard after going 
up a flight or two of stairs. Then came on other 
marks of inward trouble and general waste, which he 
spoke of to his physician as peculiar, and doubtless 
owing to accidental causes ; to all which the doctor 
listened with deference, as if it had not been the old 
story that one in five or six of mankind in temperate 
climates tells, or has told for him, as if it were some- 
thing new. As the doctor went out, he said to him- 
self, — " On the rail at last. Accommodation train. A 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 65 

good many stops, but will get to the station by-and- 
by." So the doctor wrote a recipe with the astrologi- 
cal sign of Jupiter before it, (just as your own physi- 
cian does, inestimable reader, as you will see, if you 
look at his next prescription,) and departed, saying 
he would look in occasionally. After this, the Latin 
tutor began the usual course of " getting better," until 
he got so much better that his face was very sharp, 
and when he smiled, three crescent lines showed at 
each side of his lips, and when he spoke, it was in a 
muifled whisper, and the white of his eye glistened as 
pearly as the purest porcelain, — so much better, that 

he hoped — by spring — he might be able — to — 

attend to his class again.— But he was recom- 
mended not to expose himself, and so kept his cham- 
ber, and occasionally, not having anything to do, his 
bed. The unmarried sister with whom he lived took 
care of him ; and the child, now old enough to be 
manageable, and even useful in trifling offices, sat in 
the chamber, or played about. 

Things could not go on so forever, of course. One 
morning his face was sunken and his hands were very, 
-very cold. He was "better," he whispered, but 
sadly and faintly. After a while he grew restless 
and seemed a httle wandering. His mind ran on 
his classics, and fell back on the Latin grammar. 

" Iris ! " he said, — ^'filiola inea I " — The child 
knew this meant 7ny dear little daughter as well as 
if it had been English. — '-Rainbow! " — for he 
would translate her name at times, — " come to me, 
— 7/^«/" — and his lips went on automatically, and 
murmured, ''velvenitor' — i:h^ child came and sat 
by his bedside and took his hand, which she could 
not warm, but which shot its rays of cold all through 



66 THE PROFESSOR 

her slender frame. But there she sat, looking stead- 
ily at him. Presently he opened his lips feebly, and 
whispered, " MoribwidtisP She did not know what 
that meant, but she saw that there was something new 
and sad. So she began to cry ; but presently remem- 
bering an old book that seemed to comfort him at 
times, got up and brought a Bible in the Latin ver- 
sion, called the Vulgate. -''Open it," he said, — "I 
will read, — seg7ims irritant^ — don't put the light 
out, — ah ! hcEret lateri, — I am going, — vale, vale, 
vale, good-bye, good-bye, — the Lord take care of 
my child! — Dojnine, audi — vel audita !'''' His face 
whitened suddenly, and he lay still, with open eyes 
and mouth. He had taken his last degree. 

— Little Miss Iris could not be said to begin life 
with a very brilliant rainbow over lier, in a worldly 
point of view. A limited wardrobe of man's attire, 
such as poor tutors wear, — a few good books, princi- 
pally classics, — a print or two, and a plaster model 
of the Pantheon, with some pieces of furniture which 
had seen sei^vice, — these, and a child's heart full of 
tearful recollections and strange doubts and ques- 
tions, alternating with the cheap pleasures which are 
the anodynes of childish grief; such were the treas- 
ures she inherited. — No, — I forgot. With that 
kindly sentiment which all of us feel for old men's 
first children, — frost-flowers of the early winter sea- 
son, — the old tutor's students had remembered him 
at a time when he was laughing and crying with his 
new parental emotions, and running to the side of the 
plain crib in which his alter ego, as he used to say, 
was swinging, to hang over the little heap of stirring 
clothes, from which looked the minute, red, downy, 
still, round face, with unfixed eyes and working lips, 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 6/ 

— in that unearthly gravity which has never yet been 
broken by a smile, and which gives to the earliest 
moon-year or two of an infant's life the character of a 
first old age, to counterpoise that second childhood 
which there is one chance in a dozen it may reach by- 
and-by. The boys had remembered the old man and 
young father at that tender period of his hard, dry 
life. There came to him a fair, silver goblet, embossed 
with classical figures, and bearing on a shield the 
graven words, Ex dono pjipillorum. The handle on 
its side showed what use the boys had meant it for; 
and a kind letter in it, written with the best of feeling^ 
in the worst of Latin, pointed delicately to its destina- 
tion. Out of this silver vessel, after a long, desperate, 
strangling cry, which marked her first great lesson in 
the realities of life, the child took the blue milk, such 
as poor tutors and their children get, tempered with 
water, and sweetened a little, so as to bring it nearer 
the standard established by the touching indulgence 
and partiality of Nature, — who has mingled an extra 
allowance of sugar in the blameless food of the child 
at its mother's breast, as compared with that of its 
~ infant brothers and sisters of the bovine race. 

But a willow will grow in baked sand wet with 
rain-water. An air-plant will grow by feeding on 
the winds. Nay, those huge forests that overspread 
great continents have built themselves up mainly from 
the air-currents with which they are always battling. 
The oak is but a foliated atmospheric crystal deposite'd 
from the aerial ocean that holds the future vegetable 
world in solution. The storm that tears its leaves has 
paid tribute to its strength, and it breasts the tornado 
clad in the spoils of a hundred hurricanes. 

Poor little Iris ! What had she in common with 



68 THE PROFESSOR 

the great oak in the shadow of which we are losing 
sight of her? — She lived and grew like that, — this 
was all. The blue milk ran into her veins and filled 
them with thin, pure blood. Her skin was fair, with 
a faint tinge, such as the white rosebud shows before 
it opens. The doctor who had attended her father 
was afraid her aunt would hardly be able to " raise " 
her, — "delicate child," — hoped she was not con- 
sumptive, — thought there was a fair chance she 
would take after her father. 

A very forlorn-looking person dressed in black, 
with a white neckcloth, sent her a memoir of a child 
who died at the age of two years and eleven months, 
after having fully indorsed all the doctrines of the 
particular persuasion to which he not only belonged 
himself, but thought it very shameful^ that everybody 
else did not belong. What with foreboding looks 
and dreary death-bed stories, it was a wonder the 
child made out to live through it. It saddened her 
early years, of course, — it distressed her tender soul 
with thoughts which, as they cannot be fully taken in, 
should be sparingly used as instruments of torture 
to break down the natural cheerfulness of a healthy 
child, or, what is infinitely worse, to cheat a dying one 
out of the kind illusions with which the Father of All 
has strewed its downward path. 

The child would hkve died, no doubt, and, if 
properly managed, might have added another to the 
long catalogue of wasting children who have been as 
cruelly played upon by spiritual physiologists, often 
with the best intentions, as ever the subject of a rare 
disease by the curious students of science. 

Fortunately for her, however, a wise instinct had 
guided the late Latin tutor in the selection of the 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 69 

partner of his life, and the future mother of his child. 
The deceased tutoress was a tranquil, smooth woman, 
easily nourished, as such people are, — a quality which 
is inestimable in a tutor's wife, — and so it happened 
that the daughter inherited enough vitality from the 
mother to live through childhood and infancy and 
fight her way towards womanhood, in spite of the 
tendencies she derived from her other parent. 

— Two and two do not always make four, in this 
matter of hereditary descent of qualities. Sometimes 
they make three, and sometimes five. It seems as if 
the parental traits at one time showed separate, at 
another blended, — that occasionally the force of two 
natures is represented in the derivative one by a diag- 
onal of greater value than either original line of living 
movement, — that sometimes there is a loss of vitality 
hardly to be accounted for, and again a forward im- 
pulse of variable intensity in some new and unfore- 
seen direction. 

So it was with this child. She had glanced off from 
her parental probabilities at an unexpected angle. In- 
stead of taking to classical learning like her father, or 
'sliding quietly into household duties like her mother, 
she broke out early in efforts that pointed in the direc- 
tion of Art. As soon as she could hold a pencil she 
began to sketch outlines of objects round her with a 
certain air and spirit. Very extraordinary horses, but 
their legs looked as if they could move. Birds un- 
known to Audubon, yet flying, as it were, with a rush. 
Men with impossible legs, which did yet seem to have 
a vital connection with their most improbable bodies. 
By-and-by the doctor, on his beast, — an old man 
with a face looking as if Time had kneaded it like 
dough with his knuckles, with a rhubarb tint and fla- 



70 THE PROFESSOR 

vor pervading himself and his sorrel horse and all 
their appurtenances. A dreadful old man ! Be sure 
she did not forget those saddle-bags that held the 
detestable bottles out of which housed to shake those 
loathsome powders which, to virgin childish palates 
that find heaven in strawberries and peaches, are — 
Well, I suppose I had better stop. Only she wished 
she was dead sometimes when she heard him coming. 
On the next leaf would figure the gentleman with the 
black coat and white cravat, as he looked when he 
came and entertained her with stories concerning the 
death of various little children about her age, to en- 
courage her, as that wicked Mr. Arouet said about 
shooting Admiral Byng. Then she would take her 
pencil, and with a few scratches there would be the 
outline of a child, in which you might notice how one 
sudden sweep gave the chubby cheek, and two dots 
darted at the paper looked like real eyes. 

By-and-by she went to school, and caricatured the 
schoolmaster on the leaves of her grammars and 
geographic^, and drew the faces of her companions, 
and, from time to time, heads and figures from her 
fancy, with large eyes, far apart, like those of RafFa- 
elle's mothers and children, sometimes with wild float- 
ing hair, and then with wings and heads thrown back 
in ecstasy. This was^ at about twelve years old, as 
the dates of these drawings show, and, therefore, three 
or four years before she came among us. Soon after 
this time, the ideal figures began to take the place of 
portraits and caricatures, and a new feature appeared 
in her drawing-books in the form of fragments of verse 
and short poems. 

It was dull work, of course, for such a young girl 
to live with an old spinster and go to a village school. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 7 1 

Her books bore testimony to this ; for there was a 
look of sadness in the faces she drew, and a sense of 
weariness and longing for some imaginary conditions 
of blessedness or other, which began to be painful. 
She might have gone through this flowering of the 
soul, and, casting her petals, subsided into a sober, 
human berry, but for the intervention of friendly 
assistance and counsel. 

In the town where she lived was a lady of honor- 
able condition, somewhat past middle age, who was 
possessed of pretty ample means, of cultivated tastes, 
of excellent principles, of exemplary character, and 
of more than common accomplishments. The gen- 
tleman in black broadcloth and white neckerchief only 
echoed the common voice about her, when he called 
her, after enjoying, beneath her hospitable roof, an 
excellent cup of tea, with certain elegancies and luxu- 
ries he was unaccustomed to, " The Model of all the 
Virtues." 

She deserved this title as well as almost any woman. 
She did really bristle with moral excellences. Men- 
tion any good thing she had not done ; I should like 
"to see you try ! There was no handle of weakness to 
take hold of her by ; she was as unseizable, except 
in her totality, as a billiard-ball ; and on the broad, 
green, terrestrial table, where she had been knocked 
about, like all of us, by the cue of Fortune, she glanced 
from every human contact, and " caromed " from one 
relation to another, and rebounded from the staflfed 
cushion of temptation, with such exact and perfect 
angular movements, that the Enemy's corps of Report- 
ers had long given up taking notes of her conduct, as 
there was no chance for their master. 

What an admirable person for the patroness and 



72 THE PROFESSOR 

directress of a slightly self-willed child, with the light- 
ning zigzag line of genius running like a glittering 
vein through the marble whiteness of her virgin na- 
ture ! One of the lady-patroness's peculiar virtues 
was calmness. She was resolute and strenuous, but 
still. You could depend on her for every duty ; she 
was as true as steel. She was kind-hearted and ser- 
viceable in all the relations of life. She had more 
sense, more knowledge, more conversation, as well as 
more goodness, than all the partners you have waltzed 
with this winter put together. 

Yet no man was known to have loved her, or even 
to have oiTered himself to her in marriage. It was 
a great wonder. I am very anxious to vindicate my 
character as a philosopher and an observer of Nature 
by accounting for this apparently extraordinary fact. 

You may remember certain persons who have the 
misfortune of presenting to the friends whom they 
meet a cold, damp hand. There are states of mind 
in which a contact of this kind has a depressing effect 
on the vital "powers that makes us insensible to all the 
virtues and graces of the proprietor of one of these 
life-absorbing organs. When they touch us, virtue 
passes out of us, and we feel as if our electricity had 
been drained by a powerful negative battery, carried 
about by an overgrown human torpedo. 

"The Model of all the Virtues" had a pair of 
searching eyes as clear as Wenham ice; but they 
were slower to melt than that fickle jewelry. Her 
features disordered themselves slightly at times in a 
surface-smile, but never broke loose from their corners 
and indulged in the riotous tumult of a laugh, — 
which, I take it, is the mob-law of the features, — and 
propriety the magistrate who reads the riot act. She 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 73 

carried the brimming cup of her inestimable vir- 
tues with a cautious, steady hand, and an eye always 
on them, to see that they did not spill. Then she 
was an admirable judge of character. Her mind was 
a perfect laboratory of tests and reagents ; every syl- 
lable you put into breath went into her intellectual 
eudiometer, and all your thoughts were recorded on 
litmus-paper. I think there has rarely been a more 
admirable woman. Of course. Miss Iris was im- 
mensely and passionately attached to hef . — Well, — 
these are two highly oxygenated adverbs, — grateful, 
— suppose we say, — yes, — grateful, dutiful, obedient 
to her wishes for the most part, — perhaps not quite 
up to the concert pitch of such a perfect orchestra of 
the virtues. 

We must have a weak spot or two in a character 
before we can love it much. People that do not laugh 
or cry, or take more of anything than is good for 
them, or use anything but dictionary-words, are ad- 
mirable subjects for biographies. But we don't always 
care most for those flat-pattern flowers that press best 
in the herbarium. 

This immaculate woman, — why couldn't she have 
a fault or two? Is n't there any old whisper which 
will tarnish that wearisome aureole of saintly perfec- 
tion? Doesn't she carry a lump of opium in her 
pocket? Is n't her cologne-bottle replenished oftener 
than its legitimate use would require? It would be 
such a comfort ! 

Not for the world would a young creature like Iris 
have let such words escape her, or such thoughts pass 
through her mind. Whether at the bottom of her 
soul lies any uneasy consciousness of an oppressive 
presence, it is hard to say, until we know more about 



74 THE PROFESSOR 

her. Iris sits between the little gentleman and the 
" Model of all the Virtues," as the black-coated per- 
sonage called her. — I will watch them all. 

— Here I stop for the present. What the Professor 
said has had to make way this time for what he saw 
and heard. 

• — And now you may read these lines, which were 
written for gentle souls who love music, and read in 
even tones, and, perhaps, with something Hke a smile 
upon the reader's lips, at a meeting where these musi- 
cal friends had gathered. Whether they were written 
with smiles or not, you can guess better after you 
have read them. 



THE OPENING OF THE PIANO. 

In the little southern parlor of the house you may have seen 
With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the 

green, ' 
At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right, 
Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night. 

Ah me ! how I remember the evening when it came 1 
What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame, 
When the wondrous box was opened that had come from over 

seas, 
With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys ! 

Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy. 
For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the 

boy. 
Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way. 
But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, " Now, 

Mary, play." 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 75 

For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm; 
She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow 

calm, 
In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling 

quills, 
Or carolling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills. 

So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please, 
Sat down to the new " Clementi," and struck the glittering 

keys. 
Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim, 
As, floating from lip and finger, arose the " Vesper Hymn." 

— Catharine, child of a neighbor, curly and rosy-red, 
(Wedded since, and a widow, — something like ten years 

dead,) 
Henring a gush of music such as none before, 
Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open 

door. 

Just as the "Jubilate" in threaded whisper dies, 

— " Open it ! open it, lady ! " the little maiden cries, 

(For she thought 'twas a singing creature caged in a box she 

heard,) 
" Open^t ! open it, lady ! and let me see the bird! " 



^6 THE PROFESSOR 



IV. 



I don't know whether our literary or professional 
people are more amiable than they are in other places, 
but certainly quarrelling is out of fashion among 
them. This could never be, if they were in the habit 
of secret anonymous puffing of each other. That is 
the kind of underground machinery, which manufac- 
tures false reputations and genuine hatreds. On the 
other hand, I should like to know if we are not at 
liberty to have a good time togetherj^ and say the 
pleasantest things we can think of to each other, 
when any of us reaches his thirtieth or fortieth or 
fiftieth or eightieth birthday. 

We don't have " scenes," I warrant you, on these 
occasions. iSlo " surprise" parties! You understand 
these, of course. In the rural districts, where scenic 
tragedy and melodrama cannot be had, as in the city, 
at the expense of a quarter and a white pocket-hand- 
kerchief, emotional excitement has to be sought in the 
dramas of real life. ^Christenings, weddings, and 
funerals, especially the latter, are the main depend- 
ence ; but babies, brides, and deceased citizens can- 
not be had at a day's notice. Now, then, for a 
surprise-party ! 

A bag of flour, a barrel of potatoes, some strings of 
onions, a basket of apples, a big cake and many little 
cakes, a jug of lemonade, a purse stuffed with bills of 
the more modest denominations, may, perhaps, do 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 'J^J 

well enough for the properties in one of these private 
theatrical exhibitions. The minister of the parish, a 
tender-hearted, quiet, hard-working man, living on a 
small salary, with many children, sometimes pinched 
to feed and clothe them, praying fervently every day 
to be blest in his " basket and store," but sometimes 
fearing he asks amiss, to judge by the small returns, 
has the first role^ — not, however, by his own choice, 
but forced upon him. The minister's wife, a sharp- 
eyed, unsentimental body, is first lady ; the remaining 
parts by the rest of the family. If they only had a 
playbill, it would run thus : — 

ON TUESDAY NEXT 
WILL BE PRESENTED 

THE AFFECTING SCENE 

CALLED 

THE SURPRISE-PARTY, 

OR 

THE OVERCOME FAMILY ; 

WITH THE FOLLOWING STRONG CAST OF CHARAC- 
TERS : 

The Rev. Mr. Overcome, by the Clergyman of this 
Parish. 

Mrs. Overcome., by his estimable lady. 

Masters Matthew., Mark, Luke, and John Over- 
come, 

Misses Dorcas, Tabitha^ Rachel, and Hannah Over- 
come, by their interesting children. 

Peggy, by the female help. 



;^S THE PROFESSOR 

The poor man is really grateful ; — it is a most wel- 
come and unexpected relief. He tries to express his 
thanks, — his voice falters, — he chokes, — and bursts 
into tears. That is the great effect of the evening. 
The sharp-sighted lady cries a little with one eye, 
and counts the strings of onions, and the rest of 
the things, with the other. The children stand 
ready for a spring at the apples. The female help 
weeps after the noisy fashion of untutored hand- 
maids. 

Now this is all very well as charity, but do let the 
kind visitors remember they get their money's worth. 
If you pay a quarter for dry crying^ done by a second- 
rate actor, how much ought you to pay for real hot, 
wet tears, out of the honest eyes of a gentleman who 
is not acting, but sobbing in earnest ? 

All I meant to say, when I began, was, that this 
was not a surprise-party where I read these few lines 
that follow : — 

We will not speak of years to-night ; 

For what have years to bring, 
But larger floods of love and light 

And sweeter songs to sing ? 

We will not drown in wordy praise 

The kindly thoughts that rise; 
If friendship owns one tender phrase, 

He reads it in our eyes. 

We need not waste our schoolboy art 

To gild this notch of time ; 
Forgive me, if m.y wayward heart 

Has throbbed in artless rhyme. 

Enough for him the silent grasp 
That knits us hand in hand, 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 79 

And he the bracelet's radiant clasp 
That locks our circling band. 

Strength to his hours of manly toil ! 

Peace to his starlit dreams ! 
Who loves alike the furrowed soil, 

The music-haunted streams ! 

Sweet smiles to keep forever bright 

The sunshine on his lips, 
And faith, that sees the ring of light 

Round Nature's last echpse I 

— One of our boarders has been talking in such 
strong language that I am almost afraid to report it. 
However, as he seems to be really honest and is so 
very sincere in his local prejudices, I don't believe 
anybody will be very angry with him. 

It is here, Sir ! right here ! — said the little de- 
formed gentleman, — in this old new city of Boston, — 
this remote provincial corner of a provincial nation, 
that the Battle of the Standard is fighting, and was 
-fighting before we were born, and will be fighting 
when we are dead and gone, — please God ! The 
battle goes on everywhere throughout civilization ; 
but here, here, here ! is the broad white flag flying 
which proclaims, first of all, peace and good-wall to men, 
and, next to that, the absolute, unconditional spiritual 
liberty of each individual immortal soul ! The three- 
hilled city against the seven-hilled city ! That is it, 
Sir, — nothing less than that ; and if you know what 
that means, I don't think you'll ask for anything more. 
I swear to you, Sir, I believe that these two centres of 
civilization are just exactly the two points that close 



8o THE PROFESSOR 

the circuit in the battery of our planetary intelligence! 
And I believe there are spiritual eyes looking out from 
Uranus and unseen Neptune, — ay, Sir, from the sys- 
tems of Sirius and Arcturus and Aldebaran, and as far 
as that faint stain of sprinkled worlds confluent in the 
distance that we call the nebula of Orion, — looking 
on. Sir, with what organs I know not, to see which are 
going to melt in that fiery fusion, the accidents and 
hindrances of humanity or man himself. Sir, — the 
stupendous abortion, the illustrious failure that he 
is, if the three-hilled city does not ride down and 
trample out the seven-hilled city ! 

— Steam 's up ! — said the young man John, so 
called, in a low tone. — Three hundred and sixty-five 
tons to the square inch. Let him blow her off, or he '11 
bu'st his b'iler. 

The divinity-student took it calmly, only whisper- 
ing that he thought there was a little confusion of 
images between a galvanic battery and a charge of 
cavalry. 

But the Kloh-i-noor — the gentleman, you remem- 
ber, with a very large dia7nond in his shirt-front — 
laughed his scornful laugh, and made as if to speak. 

Sail in. Metropolis ! — said that same young man 
John, by name. And then, in a lower tone, not mean- 
ing to be heard, — Now, then, Ma'am Allen ! 

But he was heard, — and the Koh-i-noor's face 
turned so white with rage, that his blue-black mous- 
tache and beard looked fearful, seen against it. He 
grinned with wrath, and caught at a tumbler, as if he 
would have thrown it or its contents at the speaker. 
The young Marylander fixed his clear, steady eye upon 
him, and laid his hand on his arm, carelessly almost, 
but the Jewel found it was held so that he could not 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 8 1 

move it. It was of no use. The youth was his 
master in muscle, and in that deadly Indian hu<r in 
which men wrestle with their eyes; — over in live 
seconds, but breaks one of their two backs, and is 
good for threescore years and ten ; — one trial enough, 
— settles the whole matter— just as when two feath- 
ered songsters of the barnyard, game and dunghill, 
come together,— after a jump or two at each other 
and a few sharp kicks, there is the end of it ; and it 
IS, Aprh V071S, Monsieur, with the beaten party in all 
the social relations for all the rest of his days. 

I cannot philosophically account forthe Koh-i-noor's 
wrath. For though a cosmetic is sold, bearing the 
name of the lady to whom reference was made by the 
young person John, yet, as it is publicly asserted in 
respectable prints that this cosmetic is ?iot a dye, I see 
no reason why he should have felt offended by anysucr- 
gestion that he was indebted to it or its authoress. I ha?e 
no doubt that there are certain exceptional complexions 
to which the purple tinge, above alluded to, is natural 
Nature is fertile in variety. I saw an albiness in 
London once, for sixpence, (including the inspection 
of a stuffed boa-constrictor,) who looked as if she had 
been boiled in milk. A young Hottentot of my ac- 
quamtance had his hair all in little pellets of the size 
of marrowfat peas. One of my own classmates has 
undergone a singular change of late years, —his hair 
losmg Its original tint, and getting a remarkable dis- 
colored look ; and another has ceased to cultivate any 
hair at all over the vertex or crown of the head. So 
I am perfectly willing to believe that the purple-black 
of the Koh-i-noor's moustache and whiskers is consti- 
tutional and not pigmentary. But I can't think why 
he got so angry. 



82 THE PROFESSOR 

The intelligent reader will understand that all this 
pantomime of the threatened onslaught and its sup- 
pression passed so quickly that it was all over by the 
time the other end of the table found out there was a 
disturbance ; just as a man chopping wood half a mile 
ofT may be seen resting on his axe at the instant you 
hear the last blow he struck. So you will please to 
observe that the Little Gentleman was not interrupted 
during the time implied by these ex-post-factox&vcvivck.^ 
of mine, but for some ten or fifteen seconds only. 

He did not seem to mind the interruption at all, 
for he started again. The " Sir '' of his harangue 
was no doubt addressed to myself more than anybody 
else, but he often uses it in discourse as if he were 
talking with some imaginary opponent. 

— America, Sir, — he exclaimed, — is the only place 
where man is full-grown ! 

He straightened himself up, as he spoke, standing 
on the top round of his high chair, I suppose, and so 
presented the larger part of his little figure to the 
view of the' boarders. 

It was next to impossible to keep from laughing. 
The commentary was so strange an illustration of the 
text ! 

I thought it was time to put in a word ; for I have 
lived in foreign parts, and am more or less cosmo- 
politan. 

I doubt if we have more practical freedom in Amer- 
ica than they have in England, — I said. — An Eng- 
Hshman thinks as he likes in religion and politics. 
Mr. Martineau speculates as freely as ever Dr. Chan- 
ning did, and Mr. Bright is as independent as Mr. 
Seward. 

Sir, — said he. — it is n't what a man thinks or says. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 83 

but when and where and to whom he thinks and says 
it. A man with a flint and steel striking sparks over 
a wet blanket is one thing, and striking them over 
a tinder-box is another. The free Englishman is 
born under protest ; he lives and dies under protest, 

— a tolerated, but not a welcome fact. Is noi free- 
thmker a term of reproach in England ? The same 
idea in the soul of an Englishman who struggled up 
to it and still holds it antagojiistically, and in the 
soul of an American to whom it is congenital and 
spontaneous, and often unrecognized, except as an 
element blended with all his thoughts, a natural move- 
ment, like the drawing of his breath or the beating 
of his heart, is a very different thing. You may teach 
a quadruped to walk on his hind legs, but he is al- 
ways wanting to be on all-fours. Nothing that can 
be taught a growing youth is like the atmospheric 
knowledge he breathes from his infancy upwards. 
The American baby sucks in freedom with the milk 
of the breast at which he hangs. 

— That 's a good joke, — said the young fellow John, 

— considerin' it commonly belongs to a female Paddy. 
- I thought — I will not be certain — that the Little 

Gentleman winked, as if he had been hit somewhere 

— as I have no doubt Dr. Darwin did when the 
wooden-spoon suggestion upset his theory about why, 
etc. If he winked, however, he did not dodge. 

A lively comment ! — he said. —But Rome, in her 
great founder, sucked the blood of empire out of the 
dugs of a brute. Sir ! The Milesian wet-nurse is 
only a convenient vessel through which the American 
infant gets the life-blood of this virgin soil, Sir, that 
is making man over again, on the sunset pattern ! 
You don't think what we are doing and going to do 



84 THE PROFESSOR 

here. Why, Sir, while commentators are bothering 
themselves with interpretation of prophecies, we have 
got the new heavens and the new earth over us and 
under us ! Was there ever anything in Italy, I 
should like to know, like a Boston sunset ? 

— This time there was a laugh, and the little man 
himself almost smiled. 

Yes, — Boston sunsets ; — perhaps they Ve as good 
in some other places, but I know 'em best here. Any- 
how, the American skies are different from anything 
they see in the Old World. Yes, and the rocks are 
different, and the soil is different, and everything that 
comes out of the soil, from grass up to Indians, is 
different. And now that the provisional races are 
dying out — 

— What do you mean by the provisional races, 
Sir ? — said the divinity-student, interrupting him. 

Why, the aboriginal bipeds, to be sure, — he an- 
swered, — the red-crayon sketch of humanity laid on 
the canvas before the colors for the real manhood 
were ready. 

I hope they will come to something yet, — said the 
divinity-student. 

Irreclaimable, Sir, — irreclaimable ! — said the Lit- 
tle Gendeman. — Cheaper to breed white men than 
domesticate a nation pi red ones. When you can 
get the bitter out of the partridge's thigh, you can 
make an enlightened commonwealth of Indians. A 
provisional race. Sir, — nothing more. Exhaled car- 
bonic acid for the use of vegetation kept down the 
bears and catamounts, enjoyed themselves in scalp- 
ing and being scalped, and then passed away or are 
passing away, according to the programme. 

Well, Sir, these races dying out, the white man has 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 85 

to acclimate himself. It takes him a good while ; but 
he will come all right by-and-by, Sir, — as sound as 
a woodchuck, — as sound as a musquash ! 

A new nursery, Sir, with Lake Superior and Huron 
and all the rest of 'em for wash-basins ! A new race, 
and a whole new world for the new-born human soul 
to work in ! And Boston is the brain of it, and has 
been any time these hundred years ! That 's all I 
claim for Boston, — that it is the thinking centre of 
the continent, and therefore of the planet. 

— And the grand emporium of modesty, — said the 
divinity-student, a little mischievously. 

Oh, don't talk to me of modesty ! — answered the 
Little Gentleman, — Pm past that ! There is n't a 
thing that was ever said or done in Boston, from pitch- 
ing the tea overboard to the last ecclesiastical lie it 
tore into tatters and flung into the dock, that was n't 
thought very indelicate by some fool or tyrant or bigot, 
and all the entrails of commercial and spiritual conser- 
vatism are twisted into colics as often as this revolu- 
tionary brain of ours has a fit of thinking come over 
it. — No, Sir, — show me any other place that is, or 
was since the megalosaurus has died out, where wealth 
and social influence are so fairly divided between the 
stationary and the progressive classes ! Show me any 
other place where every other drawing-room is not a 
chamber of the Inquisition, with papas and mammas 
for inquisitors, — and the cold shoulder, instead of the 
"dry pan and the gradual fire," the punishment of 
« heresy " ! 

— We think Baltimore is a pretty civilized kind of 
a village, — said the young Marylander, good-naturedly. 
— But I suppose you can't forgive it for always keep- 
ing a little ahead of Boston in point of numbers, — 



86 THE PROFESSOR 

tell the truth now. Are we not the centre of some- 
thing? 

Ah, indeed, to be sure you are. You are the gas- 
tronomic metropolis of the Union. Why don't you 
put a canvas-back duck on the top of the Washington 
column? Why don't you get that lady off from Battle 
Monument and plant a terrapin in her place? Why 
will you ask for other glories when you have soft crabs ? 
No, Sir, — you live too well to think as hard as we do 
in Boston. Logic comes to us with the salt-fish of 
Cape Ann ; rhetoric is born of the beans of Beverly ; 
but you — if you open your mouths to speak. Nature 
stops them with a fat oyster, or offers a slice of the 
breast of your divine bird, and silences all your aspi- 
rations. 

And what of Philadelphia? — said the Marylander. 

Oh, Philadelphia? — Waterworks, — killed by the 
Croton and Cochituate ; — Ben Franklin, — borrowed 
from Boston ; — David Rittenhouse, — made an orrery ; 

— Benjamin Rush, — made a medical system : — both 
interesting to antiquarians ; — great Red-river raft of 
medical students, — spontaneous generation of pro- 
fessors to match; — more widely known through the 
Moyamensing hose-company, and the Wistar parties ; 

— for geological section of social strata, go to The Club. 

— Good place to live in, — first-rate market, — tip-top 
peaches. — What do we know about Philadelphia, ex- 
cept that the engine-companies are always shooting 
each other? 

And what do you say to Ne' York? — asked the 
Koh-i-noor. 

A great city. Sir, — replied the Little Gentleman, — 
a very opulent, splendid city. A point of transit of 
much that is remarkable, and of permanence for much 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 8/ 

that is respectable. A great money-centre. San 
Francisco with the mines above-ground, — and some 
of ^em under the sidewalks. I have seen next to noth- 
ing ^r^;/^//6'i'^, out of New York, in all our cities. It 
makes 'em all look paltry and petty. Has many ele- 
ments of civilization. May stop where Venice did, 
though, for aught we know. — The order of its develop- 
ment is just this : — Wealth ; architecture ; upholstery ; 
painting ; sculpture. Printing, as a mechanical art, — 
just as Nicholas Jenson and the Aldi, who were scholars 
too, made Venice renowned for it. Journalism, which 
is the accident of business and crowded populations, 
in great perfection. Venice got as far as Titian and 
Paul Veronese and Tintoretto, — great colorists, mark 
you, magnificent on the flesh-and-blood side of Art, — 
but look over to Florence and see who lie in Santa 
Croce, and ask out of whose loins Dante sprung ! 

Oh, yes, to be sure, Venice built her Ducal Palace, 
and her Church of St. Mark, and her Casa d' Oro, and 
the rest of her golden houses ; and Venice had great 
pictures and good music ; and Venice had a Golden 
Book, in which all the large tax-payers had their names 
written ; — but all that did not make Venice the brain 
of Italy. 

I tell you what, Sir, — with all these magnificent 
appliances of civilization, it is time we began to hear 
something from ihejeimesse doree whose names are on 
the Golden Book of our sumptuous, splendid, marble- 
palaced Venice, — something in the higher walks of 
literature, — something in the councils of the nation. 
Plenty of Art, I grant you. Sir; now, then, for vast 
libraries, and for mighty scholars and thinkers and 
statesmen, — five for every Boston one, as the popula- 
tion is to ours, — ten to one more properly, in virtue 



88 THE PROFESSOR 

of centralizing attraction as the alleged metropolis, — 
and not call our people provincials, and have to come 
begging to us to write the lives of Hendrik Hudson 
and Gouverneur Morris ! 

— The Little Gentleman was on his hobby, exalt- 
ing his own city at the expense of every other place. 
I have my doubts if he had been in either of the cities 
he had been talking about. I was just going to say 
something to sober him down, if I could, when the 
young Marylander spoke up. 

Come, now, — he said, — what^s the use of these 
comparisons? Didn't I hear this gentleman saying, 
the other day, that every American owns all America? 
If you have really got more brains in Boston than other 
folks, as you seem to think, who hates you for it, except 
a pack of scribbling fools? If I like I^oadway better 
than Washington Street, what then ? I own them 
both, as much as anybody owns either. I am an 
American, — and wherever I look up and see the stars 
and stripes qverhead, that is home to me ! 

He spoke, and looked up as if he heard the em- 
blazoned folds crackling over him in the breeze. We 
all looked up involuntarily, as if we should see the 
national flag by so doing. The sight of the dingy 
ceiling and the gas-fixture depending therefrom dis- 
pelled the illusion. 

Bravo! bravo! — said the venerable gentleman on 
the other side of the table. — Those are the senti- 
ments of Washington's Farewell Address. Nothing 
better than that since the last chapter in Revelations. 
Five-and-forty years ago there used to be Washing- 
ton societies, and little boys used to walk in proces- 
sions, each little boy having a copy of the Address, 
bound in red, hung round his neck by a ribbon. Why 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 89 

don't they now? Why don't they now? I saw 
enough of hating each other in the old Federal times ; 
now let 's love each other, I say, — let 's love each other, 
and not try to make it out that there isn't any place 
fit to live in except the one we happen to be born in. 

It dwarfs the mind, I think, — said I, — to feed 
it on any localism. The full stature of manhood is 
shrivelled — 

The color burst up into my cheeks. What was I 
saying, — I, who would not for the world have pained 
our unfortunate little boarder by an allusion ? 

I will go, — he said, — and made a movement with 
his left arm to let himself down from his high chair. 

No, — no, — he doesn't mean it, — you must not 
go, — said a kind voice next him ; and a soft, white 
hand was laid upon his arm. 

Iris, my dear ! — exclaimed another voice, as of a 
female, in accents that might be considered a strong 
atmospheric solution of duty with very httle flavor of 
grace. 

She did not move for this address, and there was a 
tableau that lasted some seconds. For the young girl, 
in the glory of half-blown womanhood, and the dwarf, 
the cripple, the misshapen little creature covered with 
Nature's insults, looked straight into each other's eyes. 

Perhaps no handsome young woman had ever 
looked at him so in his life. Certainly the young girl 
never had looked into eyes that reached into her soul 
as these did. It was not that they were in themselves 
supernaturally bright, — but there was the sad fire in 
them that flames up from the soul of one who looks 
on the beauty of woman without hope, but, alas ! not 
without emotion. To him it seemed as if those amber 
gates had been translucent as the brown water of a 



go THE PROFESSOR 

mountain-brook, and through them he had seen dimly 
into a virgin wilderness, only waiting for the sunrise 
of a great passion for all its buds to blow and all its 
bowers to ring with melody. 

That is my image, of course, — not his. It was not 
a simile that was in his mind, or is in anybody's at 
such a moment, — it was a pang of wordless passion, 
and then a silent, inward moan. 

A lady's wish, — he said, with a certain gallantry 
of manner, — makes slaves of us all. — And Nature, 
who is kind to all her children, and never leaves the 
smallest and saddest of all her human failures without 
one little comfit of self-love at the bottom of his poor 
ragged pocket, — Nature suggested to him that he had 
turned his sentence well ; and he fell into a reverie, 
in which the old thoughts that were always hovering 
just outside the doors guarded by Common Sense, 
and watching for a chance to squeeze in, knowing per- 
fectly well they would be ignominiously kicked out 
again as soon as Common Sense saw them, flocked in 
pellmell, — Aiisty, fragmentary, vague, half-ashamed 
of themselves, but still shouldering up against his 
inner consciousness till it warmed with their con- 
tact : — John Wilkes's — the ugliest man's in Eng- 
land — saying, that with half-an-hour's start he would 
cut out the handsomest man in all the land in any 
woman's good graces ; Cadenus — old and savage — 
leading captive Stella and Vanessa ; and then the 
stray Hne of a ballad, — " And a winning tongue had 
he," — as much as to say, it is n't looks, after all, but 
cunning words, that win our Eves over, — just as of 
old, when it was the worse-looking brute of the lot 
that got our grandmother to listen to his stuff, and so 
did the mischief. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 9 1 

Ah, dear me ! We rehearse the part of Hercules 
with his club, subjugating man and woman in our 
fancy, the first by the weight of it, and the second by 
our handling of it, — we rehearse it, I say, by our own 
hearth-stones, with the cold^dk^r as our club, and the 
exercise is easy. But when we come to real life, the 
poker is /;/ the fire, and, ten to one, if we would grasp 
it, we find it too hot to hold ; — lucky for us, if it is 
not white-hot, and we do not have to leave the skin 
of our hands sticking to it when we fling it down or 
drop it with a loud or silent cry ! 

— I am frightened when I find into what a laby- 
rinth of human character and feeling I am winding. 
I meant to tell my thoughts, and to throw in a few 
studies of manner and costume as they pictured them- 
selves for me from day to day. Chance has thrown 
together at the table with me a number of persons 
who are worth studying, and I mean not only to look 
on them, but, if I can, through them. You can get 
any man's or woman's secret, whose sphere is circum- 
scribed by your own, if you will only look patiently on 
them "long enough. Nature is always applying her 
reagents to character, if you will take the pains to 
watch her. Our studies of character, to change the 
image, are very much like the surveyor's triangulation 
of a geographical province. We get a base-line in 
organization, always ; then we get an angle by sight- 
ing some distant object to which the passions or 
aspirations of the subject of our observation are tend- 
ing; then another; — and so we construct our first 
triangle. Once fix a man's ideals, and for the most 
part the rest is easy. A wants to die worth half a mill- 
ion. Good. B (female) wants to catch him, — and 
outlive him. All right. Minor details at our leisure. 



92 



THE PROFESSOR 



What is it, of all your experiences, of all your 
thoughts, of all your misdoings, that lies at the very 
bottom of the great heap of acts of consciousness 
which make up your past life? What should you 
most dislike to tell your nearest friend ? — Be so 
good as to pause for a brief space, and shut the vol- 
ume you hold with your finger between the pages. — 
Oh, that is it ! 

What a confessional I have been sitting at, with 
the inward ear of my soul open, as the multitudinous 
whisper of my involuntary confidants came back to 
me like the reduplicated echo of a cry among the 
craggy hills ! 

At the house of a friend where I once passed the 
night was one of those stately upright cabinet-desks 
and cases of drawers which were not ^are in pros- 
perous families during the last century. It had held 
the clothes and the books and the papers of genera- 
tion after generation. The hands that opened its 
drawers had grown withered, shrivelled, and at last 
been folded in death. The children that played with 
the lower handles had got tall enough to open the 
desk, — to reach the upper shelves behind the folding- 
doors, — grown bent after a while, — and then followed 
those who had gone before, and left the old cabinet 
to be ransacked by a riew generation. 

A boy of ten or twelve was looking at it a few years 
ago, and, being a quick-witted fellow, saw that all the 
space was not accounted for by the smaller drawers 
in the part beneath the lid of the desk. Prying about 
with busy eyes and fingers, he at length came upon a 
spring, on pressing which, a secret drawer flew from 
its hiding-place. It had never been opened but by 
the maker. The mahogany shavings and dust were 




A secret drawer flew from its hiding p'ace. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 93 

lying in it as when the artisan closed it, — and when 
I saw it, it was as fresh as if that day finished. 

Is there not one little drawer in your soul, my sweet 
reader, which no hand but yours has ever opened, and 
which none that have known you seem to have sus- 
pected ? What does it hold? — A sin? — I hope 
not. 

What a strange thing an old dead sin laid away in 
a secret drawer of the soul is ! Must it some time or 
other be moistened with tears, until it comes to life 
again and begins to stir in our consciousness, — as 
the dry wheel-animalcule, looking like a grain of dust, 
becomes alive, if it is wet with a drop of water ? 

Or is it a passion ? There are plenty of withered 
men and women walking about the streets who have 
the secret drawer in their hearts, which, if it were 
opened, would show as fresh as it was when they 
were in the flush of youth and its first trembling emo- 
tions. What it held will, perhaps, never be known, 
until they are dead and gone, and some curious eye 
lights on an old yellow letter with the fossil footprints 
of the extinct passion trodden thick all over it. 

There is not a boarder at our table, I firmly believe, 
excepting the young girl, who has not a story of the 
heart to tell, if one could only get the secret drawer 
open. Even this arid female, whose armor of black 
bombazine looks stronger against the shafts of love 
than any cuirass of triple brass, has had her senti- 
mental history, if I am not mistaken. I will tell you 
my reason for suspecting it. 

Like many other old women, she shows a great 
nervousness and restlessness whenever I venture to 
express any opinion upon a class of subjects which 
can hardly be said to belong to any man or set of 



94 THE PROFESSOR 

men as their strictly private property, — not even to 
the clergy, or the newspapers commonly called "re- 
ligious." Now, although it would be a great luxury 
to me to obtain my opinions by contract, ready-made, 
from a professional man, and although I have a con- 
stitutional kindly feeling to all sorts of good people 
which would make me happy to agree with all their 
beliefs, if that were possible, still I must have an idea, 
now and then, as to the meaning of life ; and though 
the only condition of peace in this world is to have 
no ideas, or, at least, not to express them, with refer- 
ence to such subjects, I can't afford to pay quite so 
much as that even for peace. 

I find that there is a very prevalent opinion among 
the dwellers on the shores of Sir Isaac Newton's 
Ocean of Truth, that salt fish^ which ha\e been taken 
from it a good while ago, split open, cured and dried, 
are the only proper and allowable food for reasonable 
people. I maintain, on the other hand, that there are 
a number of live fish still swimming in it, and that 
every one of us has a right to see if he cannot catch 
some of them. Sometimes I please myself with the 
idea that I have landed an actual living fish, small, 
perhaps, but with rosy gills and silvery scales. Then 
I find the consumers of nothing but the salted and 
dried article insist that Jt is poisonous, simply because 
it is alive, and cry out to people not to touch it. I 
have not found, however, that people mind them 
much. 

The poor boarder in bombazine is my dynamome- 
ter. I try every questionable proposition on her. If 
she winces, I must be prepared for an outcry from the 
other old women. I frightened her, the other day, by 
saying that faith^ as aji intellectual state^ was self- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 95 

reliance, which, if you have a metaphysical turn, you 
will find is not so much of a paradox as it sounds at 
first. So she sent me a book to read which was to 
cure me of that error. It was an old book, and looked 
as if it had not been opened for a long time. What 
should drop out of it, one day, but a small heart-shaped 
paper, containing a lock of that straight, coarse, brown 
hair which sets off the sharp faces of so many thin- 
flanked, large-handed bumpkins ? I read upon the 
paper the name "Hiram." — Love! love! love! — 
everywhere ! ^ everywhere ! — under diamonds and 
housemaids' "jewelry," — lifting the marrowy cam- 
ePs-hair, and rustling even the black bombazine ! — 
No, no, — I think she never was pretty, but she was 
young once, and wore bright ginghams, and, per- 
haps, gay merinos. We shall find that the poor little 
crooked man has been in love, or is in love, or will 
be in love before we have done with him, for aught 
that I know ! 

Romance ! Was there ever a boarding-house in 
the world where the seemingly prosaic table had not 
a living fresco for its background, where you could 
see, if you had eyes, the smoke and fire of some up- 
heaving sentiment, or the dreary craters of smoulder- 
ing or burnt-out passions ? You look on the black 
bombazine and high-necked decorum of your neigh- 
bor, and no more think of the real life that underlies 
this despoiled and dismantled womanhood than you 
think of a stone trilobite as having once been full of 
the juices and the nervous thrills of throbbing and 
self-conscious being. There is a wild creature under 
that long yellow pin which serves as brooch for the 
bombazine cuirass, — a wild creature, which I venture 
to say would leap in his cage, if I should stir him. 



96 THE PROFESSOR 

quiet as you think him. A heart which has been 
domesticated by matrimony and maternity is as tran- 
quil as a tame bulfinch ; but a wild heart which has 
never been fairly broken in flutters fiercely long after 
you think time has tamed it down, — like that purple 
finch I had the other day, which could not be ap- 
proached without such palpitations and frantic flings 
against the bars of his cage, that I had to send him 
back and get a little orthodox canary which had 
learned to be quiet and never mind the wires or his 
keeper's handling. I will tell you my wicked but 
half involuntary experiment on the wild heart under 
the faded bombazine. 

Was there ever a person in the room with you, 
marked by any special weakness or peculiarity, with 
whom you could be two hours and not t^uch the in- 
firm spot ? I confess the most frightful tendency to 
do just this thing. If a man has a brogue, I am sure 
to catch myself imitating it. If another is lame, I 
follow him, or, worse than that, go before him, limp- 
ing. I could never meet an Irish gentleman — if it 
had been the Duke of Wellington himself — without 
stumbling upon the word "Paddy," — which I use 
rarely in my common talk. 

I have been worried to know whether this was 
owing to some innate depravity of disposition on my 
part, some malignant torturing instinct, which, under 
different circumstances, might have made a Fijian 
anthropophagus of me, or to some law of thought for 
which I was not answerable. It is, I am convinced, 
a kind of physical fact like endosmosis, with which 
some of you are acquainted. A thin film of polite- 
ness separates the unspoken and unspeakable current 
of thought from the stream of conversation. After a 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 97 

time one begins to soak through and mingle with the 
other. 

We were talking about names, one day. — Was 
there ever anything, — I said, — like the Yankee for 
inventing the most uncouth, pretentious, detestable 
appellations, — inventing or finding them, — since the 
time of Praise-God Barebones ? I heard a country- 
boy once talking of another whom he called Eipit, as 
I understood him. Elbridge is common enough, but 
this sounded oddly. It seems the boy was christened 
Lord Pitt, — and called, for convenience, as above. 
I have heard a charming little girl, belonging to an 
intelligent family in the country, called Anges inva- 
riably ; doubtless intended for Agnes. Names are 
cheap. How can a man name an innocent new-born 
child, that never did him any harm, Hiram? — The 
poor relation, or whatever she is, in bombazine, turned 
toward me, but I was stupid, and went on. — To think 
of a man going through life saddled with such an 
abominable name as that! — The poor relation grew 
very uneasy. — I continued; for I never thought of 
all this lill afterwards. — I knew one young fellow, a 
good many years ago, by the name of Hiram — 

— What's got into you, Cousin, — said our land- 
lady, — to look so ? — There ! you 've upset your tea- 
cup ! 

It suddenly occurred to me what I had been doing, 
and I saw the poor woman had her hand at her throat ; 
she was half-choking with the " hysteric ball," — a very 
odd symptom, as you know, which nervous women 
often complain of. What business had I to be trying 
experiments on this forlorn old soul ? I had a great 
deal better be watching that young girl. 

Ah, the young girl ! I am sure that she can hide 



98 THE PROFESSOR 

nothing from me. Her skin is so transparent that 
one can almost count her heart-beats by the flushes 
they send into her cheeks. She does not seem to be 
shy, either. I think she does not know enough of 
danger to be timid. She seems to me like one of 
those birds that travellers tell of, found in remote, 
uninhabited islands, who, having never received any 
wrong at the hand of man, show no alarm at and 
hardly any particular consciousness of his presence. 

The first thing will be to see how she and our little 
deformed gentleman get along together ; for, as I have 
told you, they sit side by side. The next thing will 
be to keep an eye on the duenna, — the "Model" and 
so forth, as the white-neck-cloth called her. The 
intention of that estimable lady is, I understand, to 
launch her and leave her. I suppose tl;^re is no help 
for it, and I don't doubt this young lady knows how 
to take care of herself, but I do not like to see young 
girls turned loose in boarding-houses. Look here 
now! There is that jewel of his race, whom I have 
called for convenience the Koh-i-noor, (you under- 
stand it is quite out of the question for me to use the 
family names of our boarders, unless I want to get 
into trouble,) — I say, the gentleman with the dia- 
inofid is looking very often and very intently, it seems 
to me, down toward the farther corner of the table, 
where sits our amber-eyed blonde. The landlady's 
daughter does not look pleased, it seems to me, at 
this, nor at those other attentions which the gentle- 
man referred to has, as I have learned, pressed upon 
the newly-arrived young person. The landlady made 
a communication to me, within a few days after the 
arrival of Miss Iris, which I will repeat to the best of 
my remembrance. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 99 

He, (the person I have been speaking of,) — she 
said, — seemed to be kinder hankerin' round after that 
young woman. It had hurt her daughter's feelings a 
good deal, that the gentleman she was a-keepin' com- 
pany with should be offerin' tickets and tryin' to send 
presents to them that he'd never know'd till jest a 
little spell ago, — and he as good as merried, so fur as 
solemn promises went, to as respectable a young lady, 
if she did say so, as any there was round, whosomever 
they might be. 

Tickets! presents ! — said I. — What tickets, what 
presents has he had the impertinence to be offering to 
that young lady ? 

Tickets to the Museum, — said the landlady. — 
There is them that 's glad enough to go to the Museum, 
when tickets is given 'em ; but some of 'em ha'n't had 
a ticket sence Cenderilla was played, — and now he 
must be offerin' 'em to this ridiculous young paintress, 
or whatever she is, that 's come to make more mischief 
than her board 's worth. But it a'n't her fault, — said 
the landlady, relenting ; — and that aunt of hers, or 
whatever she is, served him right enough. 

Why, what did she do? 

Do ? Why, she took it up in the tongs and dropped 
it out o' winder. 

Dropped? dropped what? — I said. 

Why, the soap, — said the landlady. 

It appeared that the Koh-i-noor, to ingratiate him- 
self, had sent an elegant package of perfumed soap, 
directed to Miss Iris, as a delicate expression of a 
lively sentiment of admiration, and that, after having 
met with the unfortunate treatment referred to, it was 
picked up by Master Benjamin Franklin, who appro- 
priated it, rejoicing, and indulged in most unheard-of 



lOO THE PROFESSOR 

and inordinate ablutions in consequence, so that his 
hands were a frequent subject of maternal congratula- 
tion, and he smelt like a civet-cat for weeks after his 
great acquisition. 

After watching daily for a time, I think I can see 
clearly into the relation which is growing up between 
the Little Gentleman and the young lady. She shows 
a tenderness to him that I can't help being interested 
in. If he was her crippled child, instead of being 
more than old enough to be her father, she could not 
treat him more kindly. The landlady's daughter said, 
the other day, she believed that girl was settin' her 
cap for the Little Gentleman. 

Some of them young folks is very artful, — said 
her mother, — and there is them that would merry 
Lazarus, if he'd only picked up crumbg^ enough. I 
don't think, though, this is one of that sort ; she 's 
kinder childlike, — said the landlady, — and maybe 
never had any dolls to play with ; for they say her 
folks was poor before Ma'am undertook to see to her 
teachin' and' board her and clothe her. 

I could not help overhearing this conversation. 
"Board her and clothe her!" — speaking of such a 
young creature ! Oh, dear ! — Yes, — she must be 
fed, — just like Bridget, maid-of-all-work at this estab- 
lishment. Somebody , must pay for it. Somebody 
has a right to watch her and see how much it takes to 
" keep " her, and growl at her, if she has too good an 
appetite. Somebody has a right to keep an eye on her 
and take care that she does not dress too prettily. No 
mother to see her own youth over again in those 
fresh features and rising reliefs of half-sculptured 
womanhood, and, seeing its loveliness, forget her les- 
sons of neutral-tinted propriety, and open the cases 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. lOI 

that hold her own ornaments to find for her a neck- 
lace or a bracelet or a pair of ear-rings, — those 
golden lamps that light up the deep, shadowy dimples 
on the cheeks of young beauties, — swinging in a 
semibarbaric splendor that carries the wild fancy to 
Abyssinian queens and musky Odalisques! I don't 
believe any woman has utterly given up the great firm 
of Mundus & Co., so long as she wears ear-rings. 

I think Iris loves to hear the Little Gentleman talk. 
She smiles sometimes at his vehement statements, but 
never laughs at him. When he speaks to her, she 
keeps her eye always steadily upon him. This may 
be only natural good-breeding, so to speak, but it is 
worth noticing. I have often observed that vulgar 
persons, and public audiences of inferior collective 
intelligence, have this in common : the least thing 
draws off their minds, when you are speaking to them. 
I love this young creature's rapt attention to her 
diminutive neighbor while he is speaking. 

He is evidently pleased with it. For a day or two 
after she came, he was silent and seemed nervous and 
excited. Now he is fond of getting the talk into his 
own hands, and is obviously conscious that he has at 
least one interested listener. Once or twice I have 
seen marks of special attention to personal adorn- 
ment, — a ruffled shirt-bosom, one day, and a diamond 
pin in it, — not so very large as the Koh-i-noor's, but 
more lustrous. I mentioned the death's-head ring he 
wears on his right hand. I was attracted by a very 
handsome red stone, a ruby or carbuncle or something 
of the sort, to notice his left hand, the other day. It 
is a handsome hand, and confirms my suspicion that 
the cast mentioned was taken from his arm. After 
all, this is just what I should expect. It is not very 



102 THE PROFESSOR 

uncommon to see the upper limbs, or one of them, 
running away with the whole strength, and, therefore, 
with the whole beauty, which we should never have 
noticed, if it had been divided equally between all 
four extremities. If it is so, of course he is proud 
of his one strong and beautiful arm ; that is human 
nature. I am afraid he can hardly help betraying his 
favoritism, as people who have any one showy point 
are apt to do, — especially dentists with handsome 
teeth, who always smile back to their last molars. 

Sitting, as he does, next to the young girl, and next 
but one to the calm lady who has her in charge, he 
cannot help seeing their relations to each other. 

That is an admirable woman. Sir, — he said to me 
one day, as we sat alone at the table after breakfast, 

— an admirable woman, Sir, — and I hate her. 
Of course, I begged an explanation. 

An admirable woman. Sir, because she does good 
things, and even kind things, — takes care of this — 
this — young lady — we have here, talks like a sensible 
person, and always looks as if she was doing her duty 
with all her might. I hate her because her voice sounds 
as if it never trembled, and her eyes look as if she never 
knew what it was to cry. Besides, she looks at me, 
Sir, stares at me, as if she wanted to get an image of 
me for some gallery in -her brain, — and we don't love 
to be looked at in this way, we that have — I hate her, 

— I hate her, — her eyes kill me, — it is like being 
stabbed with icicles to be looked at so, — the sooner 
she goes home, the better. I don't want a woman to 
weigh me in a balance ; there are men enough for 
that sort of work. The judicial character isn't capti- 
vating in females, Sir. A woman fascinates a man 
quite as often by what she overlooks as by what she 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 103 

sees. Love prefers twilight to daylight ; and a man 
doesn't think much of, nor care much for, a woman 
outside of his household, unless he can couple the 
idea of love, past, present, or future, with her. I 
don't believe the Devil would give half as much for 
the services of a sinner as he would for those of one 
of these folks that are always doing virtuous acts in a 
way to make them unpleasing. — That young girl wants 
a tender nature to cherish her and give her a chance 
to put out her leaves, — sunshine, and not east winds. 
He was silent, — and sat looking at his handsome 
left hand with the red stone ring upon it. — Is he 
going to fall in love with Iris ? 

Here are some lines I read to the boarders the 
other day: — 

THE CROOKED FOOTPATH. 

Ah, here it is ! the sliding rail 

That marks the old remembered spot, — 

The gap that struck our schoolboy trail, — 
The crooked path across the lot. 

It left the road by school and church, 

A pencilled shadow, nothing more. 
That parted from the silver birch 

And ended at the farmhouse door. 

No line or compass traced its plan ; 

With frequent bends to left or right, 
In aimless, wayward curves it ran. 

But always kept the door in sight. 

The gabled porch, with woodbine green, — 
The broken millstone at the sill, — 



104 ^^^ PROFESSOR 



Though many a rood might stretch between, 
The truant child could see them still. 



No rocks across the pathway lie, — 
No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown, — 

And yet it winds, we know not why, 
And turns as if for tree or stone. 

Perhaps some lover trod the way 
With shaking knees and leaping heart, 

And so it often runs astray 
With sinuous sweep or sudden start. 

Or one, perchance, with clouded brain 
From some unholy banquet reeled, — 

And since, our devious steps maintain 
His track across the trodden field. 

Nay, deem not thus, — no earthborn will 
Could ever trace a faultless line ; 

Our truest steps are human still, — 
To walk unswerving were divine ! 

Truants from love, we dream of wrath ; — 
Oh, rather let us trust the more ! 

Through all the wanderings of the path, 
We still can see our Father's door I 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 10$ 



V. 

The Professor finds a Fly in his Teacup. 

I HAVE a long theological talk to relate, which must 
be dull reading to some of my young and vivacious 
friends. 1 don't know, however, that any of them 
have entered into a contract to read all that I write, 
or that I have promised always to write to please 
them. What if I should sometimes write to please 
myself ? 

Now you must know that there are a great many 
things which interest me, to some of which this or 
that particular class of readers may be totally indiffer- 
ent. I love Nature, and human nature, its thoughts, 
affections, dreams, aspirations, delusions, — Art in all 
its forms, — vi7'tu in all its eccentricities, — old stories 
from black-letter volumes and yellow manuscripts, 
and new projects out of hot brains not yet imbedded 
in the snows of age. I love the generous impulses of 
the reformer ; but not less does my imagination feed 
itself upon the old litanies, so often warmed by the 
human breath upon which they were wafted to Heaven 
that they glow through our frames like our own heart's 
blood. I hope I love good men and women ; I know 
that they never speak a word to me, even if it be of 
question or blame, that I do not take pleasantly, if it 
is expressed with a reasonable amount of human kind- 
ness. 



I06 THE PROFESSOR 

I have before me at this time a beautiful and affect- 
ing letter, which I have hesitated to answer, though 
the postmark upon it gave its direction, and the name 
is one which is known to all, in some of its repre- 
sentatives. It contains no reproach, only a delicately- 
hinted fear. Speak gently, as this dear lady has 
spoken, and there is no heart so insensible that it 
does not answer to the appeal, no intellect so virile 
that it does not own a certain deference to the claims 
of age, of childhood, of sensitive and timid natures, 
when they plead with it not to look at those sacred 
things by the broad daylight which they see in mystic 
shadow. How grateful would it be to make perpetual 
peace with these pleading saints and their confessors, 
by the simple act that silences all complainings ! Sleep, 
sleep, sleep ! says the Arch-Enchantress of them all, 
— and pours her dark and potent anodyne, distilled 
over the fires that consumed her foes, — its large, 
round drops changing, as we look, into the beads of 
her convert's rosary ! Silence ! the pride of reason ! 
cries anothet', whose whole life is spent in reasoning 
down reason, 

I hope I love good people, not for their sake, but 
for my own. And most assuredly, if any deed of 
wrong or word of bitterness led me into an act of dis- 
respect towards that enlightened and excellent class 
of men who make it their calling to teach goodness 
and their duty to practise it, I should feel that I had 
done myself an injury rather than them. Go and talk 
with any professional man holding any of the mediae- 
val creeds, choosing one who wears upon his features 
the mark of inward and outward health, who looks 
cheerful, intelligent, and kindly, and see how all your 
prejudices melt away in his presence ! It is impossible 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 10/ 

to come into intimate relations with a large, sweet na- 
ture, such as you may often find in this class, without 
longing to be at one with it in all its modes of being 
and believing. But does it not occur to you that one 
may love truth as he sees it, and his race as he views 
it, better than even the sympathy and approbation of 
many good men whom he honors, — better than sleep- 
ing to the sound of the Miserere or listening to the 
repetition of an effete Confession of Faith ? 

The three learned professions have but recently 
emerged from a state of gicasi barbarism. None of 
them like too well to be told of it, but it must be sounded 
in their ears whenever they put on airs. When a man 
has taken an overdose of laudanum, the doctors tell 
us to place him between two persons who shall make 
him walk up and down incessantly ; and if he still can- 
not be kept from going to sleep, they say that a lash 
or two over his back is of great assistance. 

So we must keep the doctors awake by telling them 
that they have not yet shaken off astrology and the 
doctrine of signatures, as is shown by the form of their 
prescriptions, and their use of nitrate of silver, which 
-turns epilectics into Ethiopians. If that is not enough, 
they must be given over to the scourgers, who like 
their task and get good fees for it. A few score years 
ago, sick people were made to swallow burnt toads and 
powdered earthworms and the expressed juice of wood- 
lice. The physician of Charles I. and II. prescribed 
abominations not to be named. Barbarism, as bad as 
that of Congo or Ashantee. Traces of this barbarism 
linger even in the greatly improved medical science 
of our century. So while the solemn farce of over- 
drugging is going on, the world over, the harlequin 
pseudo-science jumps on to the stage, whip in hand, 



I08 THE PROFESSOR 

with half-a-dozen somersets, and begins laying about 
him. 

In 1 817, perhaps you remember, the law of wager by 
battle was unrepealed, and the rascally murderous, and 
worse than murderous, clown, Abraham Thornton, put 
on his gantlet in open court and defied the appellant 
to lift the other which he threw down. It was not 
until the reign of George II. that the statutes against 
witchcraft were repealed. As for the English Court of 
Chancery, we know that its antiquated abuses form one 
of the staples of common proverbs and popular litera- 
ture. So the laws and the lawyers have to be watched 
perpetually by public opinion as much as the doctors do. 

I don't think the other profession is an exception. 
When the Reverend Mr. Cauvin and his associates 
burned my distinguished scientific brother, — he was 
burned with green fagots, which made it^ rather slow 
and painful, — it appears to me they were -in a state 
of religious barbarism. The dogmas of such people 
about the Father of Mankind and his creatures are of 
no more account in my opinion than those of a council 
of Aztecs. If a man picks your pocket, do you not 
consider him thereby disqualified to pronounce any 
authoritative opinion on matters of ethics? If a man 
hangs my ancient female relatives for sorcery, as they 
did in this neighborhood a little while ago, or burns 
my instructor for not believing as he does, I care no 
more for his religious edicts than I should for those 
of any other barbarian. 

Of course, a barbarian may hold many true opinions ; 
but when the ideas of the healing art, of the adminis- 
tration of justice, of Christian love, could not exclude 
systematic poisoning, judicial duelling, and murder for 
opinion's sake, I do not see how we can trust the ver- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. IO9 

diet of that time relating to any subject which involves 
the primal instincts violated in these abominations and 
absurdities. — What if we are even now in a state of 
j^;?z/-barbarism ? 

Perhaps some think we ought not to talk at table 
about such things. — I am not so sure of that. Reli- 
gion and government appear to me the two subjects 
which of all others should belong to the common talk 
of people who enjoy the blessings of freedom. Think, 
one moment. The earth is a great factory-wheel, 
which, at every revolution on its axis, receives fifty 
thousand raw souls and turns off nearly the same num- 
ber worked up more or less completely. There must 
be somewhere a population of two hundred thousand 
million, perhaps ten or a hundred times as many, earth- 
born intelligences. Life^ as we call it, is nothing but 
the edge of the boundless ocean of existence where it 
comes on soundings. In this view, I do not see any- 
thing so fit to talk about, or half so interesting, as that 
which relates to the innumerable majority of our fellow- 
creatures, the dead-living, who are hundreds of thou- 
sands to one of the live-living, and with whom we all 
~ potentially belong, though we have got tangled for the 
present in some parcels of fibrine, albumen, and phos- 
phates, that keep us on the minority side of the house. 
In point of fact, it is one of the many results of Spir- 
itualism to make the permanent destiny of the race a 
matter of common reflection and discourse, and a vehi- 
cle for the prevailing disbelief of the Middle-Age doc- 
trines on the subject. I cannot help thinking, when I 
remember how many conversations my friend and my- 
self have reported, that it would be very extraordinary, 
if there were no mention of that class of subjects which 
involves all that we have and all that we hope, not merely 



no THE PROFESSOR 

for ourselves, but for the dear people whom we love best, 

— noble men, pure and lovely women, ingenuous chil- 
dren, — about the destiny of nine tenths of whom you 
know the opinions that would have been taught by those 
old man-roasting, woman-strangling dogmatists. — 
However, I fought this matter with one of our boarders 
the other day, and I am going to report the conversation. 

The divinity-student came down, one morning, 
looking rather more serious than usual. He said 
little at breakfast-time, but lingered after the others, 
so that I, who am apt to be long at the table, found 
myself alone with him. 

When the rest were all gone, he turned his chair 
round towards mine, and began. 

I am afraid, — he said, — you express yourself a 
little too freely on a most important class pf subjects. 
Is there not danger in introducing discussions or allu- 
sions relating to matters of religion into common dis- 
course ? 

Danger to what ? — I asked. 

Danger to 'truth, — he replied, after a slight pause. 

I did n't know Truth was such an invalid, — I said. 

— How long is it since she could only take the air in 
a close carriage, with a gentleman in a black coat on 
the box ? Let me tell you a story, adapted to young 
persons, but which won,'t hurt older ones. 

— There was a very little boy who had one of those 
balloons you may have seen, which are filled with light 
gas, and are held by a string to keep them from run- 
ning off in aeronautic voyages on their own account. 
This little boy had a naughty brother, who said to 
him, one day, — Brother, pull down your balloon, so 
that I can look at it and take hold of it. Then the 
little boy pulled it down. Now the naughty brother 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. in 

had a sharp pin in his hand, and he thrust it into the 
balloon, and all the gas oozed out, so that there was 
nothing left but a shrivelled skin. 

One evening, the little boy's father called him to 
the window to see the moon, which pleased him very 
much ; but presently he said, — Father, do not pull 
the string and bring down the moon, for my naughty 
brother will prick it, and then it will all shrivel up and 
we shall not see it any more. 

Then his father laughed, and told him how the 
moon had been shining a good while, and would shine 
a good while longer, and that all we could do was to 
keep our windows clean, never letting the dust get too 
thick on them, and especially to keep our eyes open, 
but that we could not pull the moon down with a 
string, nor prick it with a pin. — Mind you this, too, 
the moon is no man's private property, but is seen 
from a good many parlor-windows. 

— Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, 
at a touch ; nay, you may kick it about all day, like 
a football, and it will be round and full at evening. 
Does not Mr. Bryant say, that Truth gets well if she 
is run over by a locomotive, while Error dies of lock- 
jaw if she scratches her finger ; I never heard that a 
mathematician was alarmed for the safety of a demon- 
strated proposition. I think, generally, that fear of 
open discussion implies feebleness of inward convic- 
tion, and great sensitiveness to the expression of indi- 
vidual opinion is a mark of weakness. 

— I am not so much afraid for truth, — said the 
divinity-student, — as for the conceptions of truth in 
the minds of persons not accustomed to judge wisely 
the opinions uttered before them. 

Would you, then, banish all allusions to matters of 



112 THE PROFESSOR 

this nature from the society of people who come to- 
gether habitually ? 

I would be very careful in introducing them, — said 
the divinity-student. 

Yes, but friends of yours leave pamphlets in peo- 
ple's entries, to be picked up by nervous misses and 
hysteric housemaids, full of doctrines these people do 
not approve. Some of your friends stop little children 
in the street, and give them books, which their par- 
ents, who have had them baptized into the Christian 
fold and give them what they consider proper reli- 
gious instruction, do not think fit for them. One 
would say it was fair enough to talk about matters 
thus forced upon people's attention. 

The divinity-student could not deny that this was 
what might be called opening the subject^ to the dis- 
cussion of intelligent people. 

But, — he said, — the greatest objection is this, that 
persons who have not made a professional study of 
theology are not competent to speak on such subjects. 
Suppose a niinister were to undertake to express opin- 
ions on medical subjects, for instance, would you not 
think he was going beyond his province ? 

I laughed, — for I remembered John Wesley's 
"sulphur and supplication," and so many other 
cases where ministers^ had meddled with medicine, 
— sometimes well and sometimes ill, but, as a gen- 
eral mle, with a tremendous lurch to quackery, owing 
to their very loose way of admitting evidence, — that 
I could not help being amused. 

I beg your pardon, — I said, — I do not wish to be 
impolite, but I was thinking of their certificates to 
patent medicines. Let us look at this matter. 

If a minister had attended lectures on the theory 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. II3 

and practice of medicine, delivered by those who had 
studied it most deeply, for thirty or forty years, at the 
rate of from fifty to one hundred a year, — if he had 
been constantly reading and hearing read the most 
approved text-books on the subject, — if he had seen 
medicine actually practised according to different 
methods, daily, for the same length of time, — I 
should think, that if a person of average understand- 
ing, he was entitled to express an opinion on the sub- 
ject of medicine, or else that his instructors were a 
set of ignorant and incompetent charlatans. 

If, before a medical practitioner would allow me to 
enjoy the full privileges of the healing art, he expected 
me to affirm my belief in a considerable number of 
medical doctrines, drugs, and formulae, I should think 
that he thereby implied my right to discuss the same, 
and my ability to do so, if I knew how to express my- 
self in English. 

Suppose, for instance, the Medical Society should 
refuse to give us an opiate, or to set a broken limb, 
until we had signed our belief in a certain number of 
propositions, — of which we will say this is the first : — 

I. All men's teeth are naturally in a state of total 
decay or caries, and, therefore, no man can bite until 
every one of them is extracted and a new set is in- 
serted according to the principles of dentistry adopted 
by this Society. 

I, for one, should want to discuss that before sign- 
ing my name to it, and I should say this : — Why, no, 
that isn't true. There are a good many bad teeth, 
we all know, but a great many more good ones. You 
mustn't trust the dentists ; they are all the time look- 
ing at the people who have bad teeth, and such as 
are suffering from toothache. The idea that you must 



114 ^^^ PROFESSOR 

pull out every one of every nice young man and young 
woman's natural teeth ! Poh, poh ! Nobody believes 
that. This tooth must be straightened, that must 
be filled with gold, and this other perhaps extracted ; 
but it must be a very rare case, if they are all so bad 
as to require extraction ; and if they are, don't blame 
the poor soul for it ! Don't tell us, as some old den- 
tists used to, that everybody not only always has every 
tooth in his head good for nothing, but that he ought 
to have his head cut off as a punishment for that 
misfortune! No, I can't sign Number One. Give 
us Number Two. 

II. We hold that no man can be well who does 
not agree with our views of the efficacy of calomel, 
and who does not take the doses of it prescribed in 
our tables, as there directed. » 

To which I demur, questioning why it should be 
so, and get for answer the two following : — 

III. Every man who does not take our prepared 
calomel, as prescribed by us in our Constitution and 
By-Laws, is and must be a mass of disease from head 
to foot ; it being self-evident that he is simultaneously 
affected with Apoplexy, Arthritis, Ascites, Asphyxia, 
and Atrophy ; with Borborygmus, Bronchitis, and 
Bulimia; with Cachexia, Carcinoma, and Cretinis- 
mus ; and so on through the alphabet, to Xeroph- 
thalmia and Zona, with all possible and incompatible 
diseases which are necessary to make up a totally 
morbid state ; and he will certainly die, if he does not 
take freely of our prepared calomel, to be obtained 
only of one of our authorized agents. 

IV. No man shall be allowed to take our prepared 
calomel who does not give in his solemn adhesion to 
each and all of the above-named and the following 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. I15 

propositions (from ten to a hundred) and show his 
mouth to certain of our apothecaries, who have tiot 
studied dentistry, to examine whether all his teeth 
have been extracted and a new set inserted according 
to our regulations. 

Of course, the doctors have a right to say we shan't 
have any rhubarb, if we don't sign their articles, and 
that, if, after signing them, we express doubts (in pub- 
lic) about any of them, they will cut us off from our 
jalap and squills, — but then to ask a fellow not to 
discuss the propositions before he signs them is what 
I should call boiling it down a little too strong ! 

If we understand them, why can't we discuss them ? 
If we can't understand them, because we haven't 
taken a medical degree, what the Father of Lies do 
they ask us to sign them for ? 

Just so with the graver profession. Every now 
and then some of its members seem to lose common 
sense and common humanity. The laymen have to 
keep setting the divines right constantly. Science, 
for instance, — in other words, knowledge, — is not 
the enemy of religion ; for, if so, then religion would 
mean ignorance. But it is often the antagonist of 
school-divinity. 

Everybody knows the story of early astronomy and 
the school-divines. Come down a little later. Arch- 
bishop Usher, a very learned Protestant prelate, tells 
us that the world was created on Sunday, the twenty- 
third of October, four thousand and four years before 
the birth of Christ. Deluge, December 7th, two thou- 
sand three hundred and forty-eight years B.C. — Yes, 
and the earth stands on an elephant, and the elephant 
on a tortoise. One statement is as near the truth as 
the other. 



Il6 THE PROFESSOR 

t 

Again there is nothing so brutalizing to some 
natures as jnoral surgery. I have often wondered 
that Hogarth did not add one more picture to his four 
stages of Cruelty. Those wretched fools, reverend 
divines and others, who were strangling men and 
women for imaginary crimes a Httle more than a cen- 
tury ago among us, were set right by a layman, and 
very angry it made them to have him meddle. 

The good people of Northampton had a very re- 
markable man for their clergyman, — a man with a 
brain as nicely adjusted for certain mechanical pro- 
cesses as Babbage's calculating machine. The com- 
mentary of the laymen on the preaching and practising 
of Jonathan Edwards was, that, after twenty-three 
years of endurance, they turned him out by a vote of 
twenty to one, and passed a resolve that he should 
never preach for them again. A man's logical and 
analytical adjustments are of little consequence, com- 
pared to his primary relations with Nature and truth ; 
and people have sense enough to find it out in the 
long run ; they know what " logic " is worth. 

In that miserable delusion referred to above, the 
reverend Aztecs and Fijians argued rightly enough 
from their premises, no doubt, for many men can do 
this. But common sense and common humanity were 
unfortunately left out from their premises, and a lay- 
man had to supply them. A hundred more years and 
many of the barbarisms still lingering among us 
will, of course, have disappeared like witch-hanging. 
But people are sensitive now, as they were then. You 
will see by this extract that the Rev. Cotton Mather 
did not like intermeddling with his business very well. 
" Let the Levites of the Lord keep close to their In- 
structions," he says, " and God will smite thro' the loins 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 117 

of those that rise up against them. I will report unto 
you a Thing which many Hundreds among us know 
to be true. The Godly Minister of a certain Town in 
Connecticut, when he had occasion to be absent on 
a Lorcfs Day from his Flock, employed an honest 
Neighbour of some small Talents for a Mechanick, to 
read a Sermon out of some good Book unto 'em. This 
Honest, whom they ever counted also a Pious Man^ 
had so much conceit of his Talents, that instead of 
Reading a Sermon appointed, he to the Surprize of the 
People, fell to preaching one of his owti. For his Text 
he took these Words, * Despise not Prophecy ings ' ; 
and in his Preachment he betook himself to bewail 
the Envy of the Clergy in the Land, in that they did 
not wish all the Lord^s People to be Prophets, and call 
forth Private Brethren publickly to prophesie. While 
he was thus in the midst of his Exercise, God smote 
him with horrible Madness; he was taken ravingly dis- 
tracted ; the People were forc'd with violent Hands 
to carry him home. ... I will not mention his 
Name : He was reputed a Pious Man." — This is one 
of Cotton's " Remarkable Judgments of God, on Sev- 
eral Sorts of Offenders,"" — and the next cases referred 
to are the Judgments on the "Abominable Sacrilege" 
of not paying the Ministers' Salaries. . 

This sort of thing doesn't do here and now, you see, 
my young friend ! We talk about our free institutions ; 
— they are nothing but a coarse outside machinery to 
secure the freedom of individual thought. The Presi- 
dent of the United States is only the engine-driver of 
our broad-gauge mail-train ; and every honest, indepen- 
dent thinker has a seat in the first-class cars behind 
him. 

— There is something in what you say, — replied 



Il8 THE PROFESSOR 

the divinity-student ; — and yet it seems to me there 
are places and times where disputed doctrines of 
religion should not be introduced. You would not 
attack a church dogma — say, Total Depravity — in 
a Lyceum-lecture, for instance ? 

Certainly not ; I should choose another place, — I 
answered. — But, mind you, at this table I think it is 
very different. I shall express my ideas on any sub- 
ject I like. The laws of the lecture-room, to which 
my friends and myself are always amenable, do not 
hold here. I shall not often give arguments, but fre- 
quently opinions, — I trust with courtesy and propriety, 
but, at any rate, with such natural forms of expression 
as it has pleased the Almighty to bestow upon me. 

A man's opinions, look you, are generally of much 
more value than his arguments. These l^st are made 
by his brain, and perhaps he does not believe the 
proposition they tend to prove, — as is often the case 
with paid lawyers ; but opinions are formed by our 
whole nature, — brain, heart, instinct, brute life, every- 
thing all out experience has shaped for us by contact 
with the whole circle of our being. 

— There is one thing more, — said the divinity- 
student, — that I wished to speak of; I mean that idea 
of yours, expressed some time since, of depolarizing 
the text of sacred books in order to judge them fairly. 
May I ask why you do not try the experiment your- 
self.? 

Certainly, — I replied, — if it gives you any pleas- 
ure to ask foolish questions. I think the ocean tele- 
graph-wire ought to be laid and will be laid, but I 
don't know that you have any right to ask me to go 
and lay it. But, for that matter, I have heard a good 
deal of Scripture depolarized in and out of the pulpit. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 19 

I heard the Rev. Mr. F. once depolarize the story of 
the Prodigal Son in Park-Street Church. Many years 
afterwards, I heard him repeat the same or a similar 
depolarized version in Rome, New York. I heard an 
admirable depolarization of the story of the young 
man who " had great possessions " from the Rev. 
Mr. H. in another pulpit, and felt that I had never half 
understood it before. All paraphrases are more or 
less perfect depolarizations. But I tell you this : the 
faith of our Christian community is not robust enough 
to bear the turning of our most sacred language into 
its depolarized equivalents. You have only to look 
back to Dr. Channing's famous Baltimore discourse 
and remember the shrieks of blasphemy with which it 
was greeted, to satisfy yourself on this point. Time, 
time only, can gradually wean us from our Epeolatry, 
or word-worship, by spiritualizing our ideas of the 
thing signified. Man is an idolater or symbol-wor- 
shipper by nature, which, of course, is no fault of his ; 
but sooner or later all his local and temporary symbols 
must be ground to po\vder, like the golden calf, — 
word-images as well as metal and wooden ones. 
Rough work, iconoclasm, — but the only way to get 
at truth. It is, indeed, as that quaint and rare old 
discourse, " A Summons for Sleepers," hath it, " no 
doubt a thankless office, and a verie unthriftie occu- 
pation ; vcj-itas odium parity truth never goeth with- 
out a scratcht face ; he that will be busie with vce vobis^ 
let him looke shortly for coram nobis.'''' 

The very aim and end of our institutions is just this : 
that we may think what we like and say what we think. 

— Think what we like ! — said the divinity-stu- 
dent ; — think what we like! What! against all 
human and divine authority ? 



I20 THE PROFESSOR 

Against all human versions of its own or any other 
authority. At our own peril always, if we do not like 
the right, — but not at the risk of being hanged and 
quartered for political heresy, or broiled on green 
fagots for ecclesiastical treason ! Nay, we have got 
so far, that the very word heresy has fallen into com- 
parative disuse among us. ^ 

And now, my young friend, let us shake hands and 
stop our discussion, which we will not make a quarrel. 
I trust you know, or will learn, a great many things 
in your profession which we common scholars do not 
know ; but mark this : when the common people of 
New England stop talking politics and theology, it 
will be because they have got an Emperor to teach 
them the one, and a Pope to teach them the other! 

That was the end of my long conference with the 
divinity-student. The next morning we got talking 
a little on the same subject, very good-naturedly, as 
people return to a matter they have talked out. 

You must look to yourself, — said the divinity-stu- 
dent, — if your democratic notions get into print. 
You will be fired into from all quarters. 

If it were only a bullet, with the marksman's name 
on it! — I said. — I can't stop to pick out the peep- 
shot of the anonymous scribblers. 

Right, Sir! right !-t said the Little Gentleman. — 
The scamps! I know the fellows. They can't give 
fifty cents to one of the Antipodes, but they must have 
it jingled along through everybody's palms all the way, 
till it reaches him, — and forty cents of it get spilt, like 
the water out of the fire-buckets passed along a "lane " 
at a fire ; — but when it comes to anonymous defama- 
tion, putting lies into people's mouths, and then adver- 
tising those people through the country as the authors 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 121 

of them, — oh, then it is that they let not their left 
hand know what their right hand doeth ! 

I don't like Ehud's style of doing business. Sir. 
He comes along with a very sanctimonious look, Sir, 
with his " secret errand unto thee," and his " message 
from God unto thee," and then pulls out his hidden 
knife with that unsuspected left hand of his, — (the 
Little Gentleman lifted his clenched left hand with 
the blood-red jewel on the ring-finger,) — and runs 
it, blade and haft, into a man's stomach ! Don't med- 
dle with these fellows. Sir. They are read mostly by 
persons whom you would not reach, if you were to 
write ever so much. Let 'em alone. A man whose 
opinions are not attacked is beneath contempt. 

I hope so, — I said. — I got three pamphlets and 
innumerable squibs flung at my head for attacking one 
of the pseudo-sciences, in former years. When, by 
the permission of Providence, I held up to the profes- 
sional public the damnable facts connected with the 
conveyance of poison from one young mother's cham- 
ber to another's, — for doing which humble office I 
desire to be thankful that I have lived, though nothing 
else good should ever come of my life, — I had to bear 
the sneers of those whose position I had assailed, and, 
as I believe, have at last demolished, so that nothing 
but the ghosts of dead women stir among the ruins. — 
What would you do, if the folks without names kept 
at you, trying to get a San Benito on to your shoulders 
that would fit you ? — Would you stand still in fly- 
time, or would you give a kick now and then ? 

Let 'em bite ! — said the Little Gentleman ; — let 
'em bite ! It makes 'em hungry to shake 'em off, and 
they settle down again as thick as ever and twice as 
savage. Do you know what meddling with the folks 



122 THE PROFESSOR 

without names, as you call 'em, is like ? — It is like 
riding at the quintain. You run full tilt at the board, 
but the board is on a pivot, with a bag of sand on an 
arm that balances it. The board gives way as soon 
as you touch it ; and before you have got by, the 
bag of sand comes round w^hack on the back of your 
neck. "Ananias," for instance, pitches into your 
lecture, we will say, in some paper taken by the people 
in your kitchen. Your servants get saucy and negli- 
gent. If their newspaper calls you names, they need 
not be so particular about shutting doors softly or 
boiling potatoes. So you lose your temper, and come 
out in an article which you think is going to finish 
" Ananias," proving him a booby who doesn't know 
enough to understand even a lyceum-lecture, or else a 
person that tells lies. Now you think you Ve got him ! 
Not so fast. " Ananias " keeps still and wmks to 
" Shimei," and "Shimei" comes out in the paper 
which they take in your neighbor's kitchen, ten times 
worse than t' other fellow. If you meddle with 
"Shimei,"(he steps out, and next week appears 
" Rab-shakeh," an unsavory wretch ; and now, at any 
rate, you find out what good sense there was in Heze- 
kiah's " Answer him not." — No, no, — keep your 
temper. — So saying, the Little Gentleman doubled 
his left fist and looked at it, as if he should like to 
hit something or somebody a most pernicious punch 
with it. 

Good! — said I. — Now let me give you some 
axioms I have arrived at, after seeing something of a 
great many kinds of good folks. 

— Of a hundred people of each of the different lead- 
ing religious sects, about the same proportion will be 
safe and pleasant persons to deal and to live with. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 23 

— There are, at least, three real saints among the 
women to one among the men, in every denomination. 

— The spiritual standard of different classes I would 
reckon thus : — 

1. The comfortably rich. 

2. The decently comfortable. 

3. The very rich, who are apt to be irreligious. 

4. The very poor, who are apt to be immoral. 

— The cut nails of machine-divinity may be driven 
in, but they won't clinch. 

— The arguments which the greatest of our school- 
men could not refute were two : the blood in men's 
veins, and the milk in women's breasts. 

— Humility is the first of the virtues — for other 
people. 

— Faith always implies the disbelief of a lesser fact 
in favor of a greater. A little mind often sees the un- 
belief, without seeing the belief, of a large one. 

The Poor Relation had been fidgeting about and 
working her mouth while all this was going on. She 
broke out in speech at this point. 

I hate to hear folks talk so. I don't see that you 
are any better than a heathen. 

I wish I were half as good as many heathens have 
been, — I said. — Dying for a principle seems to me a 
higher degree of virtue than scolding for it ; and the 
history of heathen races is full of instances where 
men have laid down their lives for the love of their 
kind, of their country, of truth, nay, even for simple 
manhood's sake, or to show their obedience or fidelity. 
What would not such beings have done for the souls 
of men, for the Christian commonwealth, for the King 
of Kings, if they had lived in days of larger light? 
Which seems to you nearest heaven, Socrates drink- 



124 ^^^^ PROFESSOR 

ing his hemlock, Regulus going back to the enemy's 
camp, or that old New England divine sitting com- 
fortably in his study and chuckling over his conceit 
of certain poor women, who had been burned to death 
in his own town, going " roaring out of one fire into 
another"? 

I don't believe he said any such thing, — replied 
the Poor Relation. 

It is hard to believe, — said I, — but it is true for 
all that. In another hundred years it will be as in- 
credible that men talked as we sometimes hear them 
now. 

Pectus est quod facit theologum. The heart makes 
the theologian. Every race, every civilization, either 
has a new revelation of its own or a new interpreta- 
tion of an old one. Democratic America has a differ- 
ent humanity from feudal Europe, and so must have 
a new divinity. See, for one moment, how intelli- 
gence reacts on our faiths. The Bible was a divining- 
book to our ancestors, and is so still in the hands of 
some of the (Vulgar. The Puritans went to the Old 
Testament for their laws ; the Mormons go to it for 
their patriarchal institution. Every generation dis- 
solves something new and precipitates something once 
held in solution from that great storehouse of tempo- 
rary and permanent truths. 

You may observe thfs : that the conversation of 
intelligent men of the stricter sects is strangely in ad- 
vance of the formulae that belong to their organiza- 
tions. So true is this, that I have doubts whether a 
large proportion of them would not have been rather 
pleased than offended, if they could have overheard 
our talk. For, look you, I think there is hardly a pro- 
fessional teacher who will not in private conversation 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 12$ 

allow a large part of what we have said, though it may 
frighten him in print ; and I know well what an under- 
current of secret sympathy gives vitality to those poor 
words of mine which sometimes get a hearing. 

I don't mind the exclamation of any old stager 
who drinks Madeira worth from two to six Bibles a 
bottle, and burns, according to his own premises, a 
dozen souls a year in the cigars with which he mud- 
dles his brains. But as for the good and true and in- 
telligent men whom we see all around us, laborious, 
self-denying, hopeful, helpful, — men who know that 
the active mind of the century is tending more and 
more to the two poles, Rome and Reason, the sover- 
eign church or the free soul, authority or personality, 
God in us or God in our masters, and that, though a 
man may by accident staiid half-way between these 
two points, he must look one way or the other, — I 
don't believe they would take oiTence at anything I 
have reported of our late conversation. 

But supposing any one do take offence at first sight, 
let him look over these notes again, and see whether 
he is quite sure he does not agree with most of these 
things that were said amongst us. If he agrees with 
most of them, let him be patient with an opinion he 
does not accept, or an expression or illustration a 
little too vivacious. I don't know that I shall report 
any more conversations on these topics ; but I do 
insist on the right to express a civil opinion on this 
class of subjects without giving offence, just when and 
where I please, — unless, as in the lecture-room, there 
is an implied contract to keep clear of doubtful matters. 
You did n't think a man could sit at a breakfast-table 
doing nothing but making puns every morning for 
a year or two, and never give a thought to the two 



126 THE PROFESSOR 

thousand of his fellow-creatures who are passing into 
another state during every hour that he sits talking 
and laughing! Of course, the one matter that a real 
human being cares for is what is going to become of 
them and of him. And the plain truth is, that a good 
many people are saying one thing about it and believ- 
ing another. 

— How do I know that? Why, I have known and 
loved to talk with good people, all the way from Rome 
to Geneva in doctrine, as long as I can remember. 
Besides, the real religion of the world comes from 
women much more than from men, — from mothers 
most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their 
bosoms. It is in their hearts that the " sentimental'' 
religion some people are so fond of sneering at has its 
source. The sentiment of love, the sentiment^ of 
maternity, the sentiment of the paramount obliga- 
tion of the parent to the child as having called it 
into existence, enhanced just in proportion to the 
power and knowledge of the one and the weakness 
and ignorance of the other, — these are the "senti- 
ments" that have kept our soulless systems from driv- 
ing men off to die in holes like those that riddle the 
sides of the hill opposite the Monastery of St. Saba, 
where the miserable victims of a falsely-interpreted 
religion starved and withered in their delusion. 

I have looked on the face of a saintly woman this 
very day, whose creed many dread and hate, but 
whose life is lovely and noble beyond all praise. 
When I remember the bitter words I have heard 
spoken against her faith, by men who have an Inqui- 
sition which excommunicates those who ask to leave 
their communion in peace, and an Index Expurga- 
torius on which this article may possibly have the 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 12/ 

and, far worse than these, the re- 
luctant, Pharisaical confession, that it might perhaps 
be possible that one who so believed should be 
accepted of the Creator, — and then recall the sweet 
peace and love that show through all her looks, the 
price of untold sacrifices and labors, — and again rec- 
ollect how thousands of women, filled with the same 
spirit, die, without a murmur, to earthly life, die to 
their own names even, that they may know nothing 
but their holy duties, — while men are torturing and 
denouncing their fellows, and while we can hear day 
and night the clinking of the hammers that are trying, 
like the brute forces in the "Prometheus," to rivet 
their adamantine wedges right through the breast of 
human nature, — I have been ready to believe that we 
have even now a new revelation, and the name of its 
Messiah is Woman ! 

— I should be sorry, — I remarked, a day or two 
afterwards, to the divinity-student, — if anything I 
said tended in any way to foster any jealousy between 
the professions, or to throw disrespect upon that one 
on whose counsel and sympathies almost all of us lean 
in our moments of trial. But we are false in our new 
conditions of life, if we do not resolutely maintain our 
religious as well as our political freedom, in the face 
of any and all supposed monopolies. Certain men 
will, of course, say two things, if we do not take their 
views : first, that we don't know anything about these 
matters ; and, secondly, that we are not so good as 
they are. They have a polarized phraseology for say- 
ing these things, but it comes to precisely that. To 
which it may be answered, in the first place, that we 
have good authority for saying that even babes and 
sucklings know something', and, in the second, that, 



128 THE PROFESSOR 

if there is a mote or so to be removed from our prem- 
ises, the courts and councils of the last few years 
have found beams enough in some other quarters to 
build a church that would hold all the good people 
in Boston and have sticks enough left to make a bon- 
fire for all the heretics. 

As to that terrible depolarizing process of mine, of 
which we were talking the other day, I will give you a 
specimen of one way of managing it, if you like. I 
don't believe it will hurt you or anybody. Besides, I 
had a great deal rather finish our talk with pleasant 
images and gentle words than with sharp sayings, 
which will only afford a text, if anybody repeats them, 
for endless relays of attacks from Messrs. Ananias, 
Shimei, and Rab-shakeh. 

[I must leave such gentry, if any of them show 
themselves, in the hands of my clerical friends, many 
of whom are ready to stand up for the rights of the 
laity, — and to those blessed souls, the good women, 
to whom this version of the story of a mother's hid- 
den hopes and tender anxieties is dedicated by their 
peaceful and loving servant.] 



A MOTHER'S SECRET. 

How sweet the sacped legend — if unblamed 
In my slight verse such holy things are named — 
Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy, 
Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy ! 
Ave, Maria ! Pardon, if I wrong 
Those heavenly words that shame my earthly song ! 

The choral host had closed the angel's strain 
Sung to the midnight watch on Bethlehem's plain ; 
And now the shepherds, hastening on their way, 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 129 

Sought the still hamlet where the Infant lay. 

They passed the fields that gleaning Ruth toiled o'er, — 

They saw afar the ruined threshing-floor 

Where Moab's daughter, homeless and forlorn. 

Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of corn ; 

And some remembered how the holy scribe. 

Skilled in the lore of every jealous tribe, 

Traced the warm blood of Jesse's royal son 

To that fair alien, bravely wooed and won. 

So fared they on to seek the promised sign 

That marked the anointed heir of David's line. 

At last, by forms of earthly semblance led, 
They found the crowded inn, the oxen's shed. 
No pomp was there, no glory shone around 
On the coarse straw that strewed the reeking ground ; 
One dim retreat a flickering torch betrayed, — 
In that poor cell the Lord of Life was laid ! 

The wondering shepherds told their breathless tale 
Of the bright choir that woke the sleeping vale ; 
Told how the skies with sudden glory flamed ; 
Told how the shining multitude proclaimed 
" Joy> joy ^o earth ! Behold the hallowed mom! 
In David's city Christ the Lord is born ! 
' Glory to God ! ' let angels shout on high, — 
' Good-will to men ! ' the Ustening Earth reply ! " 

They spoke with hurried words and accents wild; 
Calm in his cradle slept the heavenly child. 
No trembling word the mother's joy revealed, — 
One sigh of rapture, and her lips were sealed ; 
Unmoved she saw the rustic train depart, 
But kept their words to ponder in her heart. 

Twelve years had passed ; the boy was fair and tall, 
Growing in wisdom, finding grace with all. 
The maids of Nazareth, as they trooped to fill 
Their balanced urns beside the mountain-rill, — 
The gathered matrons, as they sat and spun, 
Spoke in soft words of Joseph's quiet son. 
No voice had reached the Galilean vale 
Of star-led kings or awe-struck shepherds' tale ; 



130 THE PROFESSOR 

In the meek, studious child they only saw 
The future Rabbi, learned in Israel's law. 

So grew the boy ; and now the feast was near, 
When at the holy place the tribes appear. 
Scarce had the home-bred child of Nazareth seen 
Beyond the hills that girt the village-green. 
Save when at midnight, o'er the star-lit sands, 
Snatched from the steel of Herod's murdering bands, 
A babe, close-folded to his mother's breast. 
Through Edom's wilds he sought the sheltering West. 

Then Joseph spake : " Thy boy hath largely grown ; 
Weave him fine raiment, fitting to be shown ; 
Fair robes beseem the pilgrim, as the priest: 
Goes he not with us to the holy feast ? " 

And Mary culled the flaxen fibres white ; 
Till eve she spun ; she spun till morning light ; 
The thread was twined ; its parting meshes through 
From hand to hand her restless shuttle flew, 
Till the full web was wound upon the beam, — ^ 

Love's curious toil, — a vest without a seam ! 

They reach the holy place, fulfil the days 
To solemn feasting given, and grateful praise. 
At last they turn, and far Moriah's height 
Melts ii^ the southern sky and fades from sight. 
All day the dusky caravan has flowed 
In devious trails along the winding road, — 
(For many a step their homeward path attends, 
And all the sons of Abraham are as friends). 
Evening has come, — the hour of rest and joy ; — 
Hush ! hush ! — that whisper, — " Where is Mary's boy ? ' 

O weary hour ! aching days that passed 
Filled with strange fears, each wilder than the last : 
The soldier's lance, — the fierce centurion's sword, — 
The crushing wheels that whirl some Roman lord, — 
The midnight crypt that sucks the captive's breath, — 
The bhstering sun on Hinnom's vale of death ! 

Thrice on his cheek had rained the morning light, 
Thrice on his lips the mildewed kiss of night, 
Crouched by some porphyry column's shining plinth, 
Or stretched beneath the odorous terebinth. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 13 1 

At last, in desperate mood, they sought once more 
The Temple's porches, searched in vain before ; 
They found him seated with the ancient men, — 
The grim old rufflers of the tongue and pen, — 
Their bald heads glistening as they clustered near, 
Their gray beards slanting as they turned to hear. 
Lost in half-envious wonder and surprise 
That lips so fresh should utter words so wise. 

And Mary said, — as one who, tried too long, 
Tells all her grief and half her sense of wrong, — 
" What is this thoughtless thing which thou hast done ? 
Lo, we have sought thee sorrowing, O my son ! " 
Few words he spake, and scarce of filial tone, — 
Strange words, their sense a mystery yet unknown ; 
Then turned with them and left the holy hill, 
To all their mild commands obedient still. 

The tale was told to Nazareth's sober men, 
And Nazareth's matrons told it oft again ; 
The maids retold it at the fountain's side ; 
The youthful shepherds doubted or denied ; 
It passed around among the listening friends, 
With all that fancy adds and fiction lends, 
Till newer marvels dimmed the young renown 
Of Joseph's son, who talked the Rabbis down. 

But Mary, faithful to its lightest word, 
Kept in her heart the sayings she had heard. 
Till the dread morning rent the Temple's veil. 
And shuddering Earth confirmed the wondrous tale. 

Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; 
A mother's secret hope outlives them all. 



132 THE PROFESSOR 



VI. 

You don't look so dreadful poor in the face as you 
did a while back. Bloated some, I expect. 

This was the cheerful and encouraging and elegant 
remark with which the Poor Relation greeted the 
divinity-student one morning. 

Of course every good man considers it a great sac- 
rifice on his part to continue living in this transi- 
tory, unsatisfactory, and particularly unpleasant world. 
This is so much a matter of course, that I was sur- 
prised to see the divinity-student change color. He 
took a look at a small and uncertain-minded glass 
which hung slanting forward over the chapped side- 
board. The image it returned to him had the color 
of a very young pea somewhat over-boiled. The sce- 
nery of a I'ong tragic drama flashed through his mind 
as the lightning-express-train whishes by a station : 
the gradual dismantling process of disease ; friends 
looking on, sympathetic, but secretly chuckling over 
their own stomachs of iron and lungs of caoutchouc ; 
nurses attentive, but calculating their crop, and think- 
ing how soon it will be ripe, so that they can go to 
your neighbor, who is good for a year or so longer ; 
doctors assiduous, but giving themselves a mental 
shake, as they go out of your door, which throws off 
your particular grief as a duck sheds a raindrop from 
his oily feathers ; undertakers solemn, but happy ; 
then the great subsoil cultivator, who plants, but 
never looks for fruit in his garden ; then the stone- 



AT 2^ HE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 133 

cutter, who finds the lie that has been waiting for you 
on a slab ever since the birds or beasts made their 
tracks on the new red sandstone ; then the grass and 
the dandelions and the buttercups, — Earth saying to 
the mortal body, with her sweet symbolism, " You 
have scarred my bosom, but you are forgiven " ; then 
a glimpse of the soul as a floating consciousness with- 
out very definite form or place, but dimly conceived of 
as an upright column of vapor or mist several times 
larger than life-size, so far as it could be said to have 
any size at all, wandering about and living a thin and 
half-awake life for want of good old-fashioned solid 
matter to come down upon with foot and fist, — in 
fact, having neither foot nor fist, nor conveniences for 
taking the sitting posture. 

And yet the divinity-student was a good Christian, 
and those heathen images which remind one of the 
childlike fancies of the dying Adrian were only the 
efforts of his imagination to give shape to the form- 
less and position to the placeless. Neither did his 
thoughts spread themselves out and link themselves 
as I have displayed them. They came confusedly into 
'his mind like a heap of broken mosaics, — sometimes a 
part of the picture complete in itself, sometimes con- 
nected fragments, and sometimes only single severed 
stones. 

They did not diffuse a light of celestial joy over his 
countenance. On the contrary, the Poor Relation's 
remark turned him pale, as I have said ; and when 
the terrible wrinkled and jaundiced looking-glass 
turned him green in addition, and he saw himself in 
it, it seemed to him as if it were all settled, and his 
book of life were to be shut not yet half-read, and go 
back to the dust of the under-ground archives. He 



134 ^^^ PROFESSOR 

coughed a mild short cough, as if to point the direc- 
tion in which his downward path was tending. It 
was an honest little cough enough, so far as appear- 
ances went. But coughs are ungrateful things. You 
find one out in the cold, take it up and nurse it and 
make everything of it, dress it up warm, give it all 
sorts of balsams and other food it likes, and carry it 
round in your bosom as if it were a miniature lapdog. 
And by-and-by its little bark grows sharp and savage, 
and — confound the thing ! — you find it is a wolf's 
whelp that you have got there, and he is gnawing in 
the breast where he has been nestling so long. — The 
Poor Relation said that somebody's surrup was good for 
folks that were gettin' into a bad way. — The landlady 
had heard of desperate cases cured by cherry-pictorial. 

Whiskey's the fellah, — said the young man John. 
— Make it into punch, cold at dinner-time 'n' hot at 
bed-time. I '11 come up 'n' show you how to mix it. 
Have n't any of you seen the wonderful fat man ex- 
hibitin' down in Hanover Street? 

Master Benjamin Franklin rushed into the dialogue 
with a breezy exclamation, that he had seen a great 
picter outside of the place where the fat man was ex- 
hibitin'. Tried to get in at half-price, but the man 
at the door looked at his teeth and said he was more 'n 
ten year old. 

It isn't two years, — said the young man John, — 
since that fat fellah was exhibitin' here as the Livin' 
Skeleton. Whiskey — that's what did it, — real 
Burbon's the stuff. Hot water, sugar, 'n' jest a 
little shavin' of lemon-skin in it, — skm, mind you, 
none o' your juice ; take it off thin, — shape of one 
of them flat curls the factory-girls wear on the sides 
of their foreheads. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 35 

But I am a teetotaller, — said the divinity-student, 
in a subdued tone ; — not noticing the enormous length 
of the bow-string the young fellow had just drawn. 

He took up his hat and went out. 

I think you have worried that young man more 
than you meant, — I said. — I don't believe he will 
jump off one of the bridges, for he has too much 
principle ; but I mean to follow him and see where 
he goes, for he looks as if his mind were made up to 
something. 

I followed him at a reasonable distance. He walked 
doggedly along, looking neither to the right nor the 
left, turned into State Street, and made for a well- 
known Life-insurance Office. Luckily, the doctor 
was there and overhauled him on the spot. There 
w^as nothing the matter with him, he said, and he 
could have his life insured as a sound one. He came 
out in good spirits, and told me this soon after. 

This led me to make some remarks the next morn- 
ing on the manners of well-bred and ill-bred people. 

I began, — The whole essence of true gentle-breed- 
ing (one does not like to say gentility) lies in the 
wish and the art to be agreeable. Good-breeding is 
S2irf ace-Christianity . Every look, movement, tone, 
expression, subject of discourse, that may give pain 
to another is habitually excluded from conversational 
intercourse. This is the reason why rich people are 
apt to be so much more agreeable than others. 

— I thought you were a great champion of equality, 
— said the discreet and severe lady who had accom- 
panied our young friend, the Latin Tutor's daughter. 

I go politically for equality, — I said, — and socially 
for the quality. 



136 THE PROFESSOR 

Who are the " quality," — said the Model, etc., — 
in a community like ours ? 

I confess I find this question a little difficult to 
answer, — I said. — Nothing is better known than 
the distinction of social ranks which exists in every 
community, and nothing is harder to define. The 
great gentlemen and ladies of a place are its real lords 
and masters and mistresses ; they are the quality^ 
whether in a monarchy or a republic ; mayors and 
governors and generals and senators and ex-presi- 
dents are nothing to them. How well we know this, 
and how seldom it finds a distinct expression ! Now 
I tell you truly, I believe in man as man, and I dis- 
believe in all distinctions except such as follow the 
natural lines of cleavage in a society which has crystal- 
lized according to its own true laws. But the essence 
of equality is to be able to say the truth ; and there 
is nothing more curious than these truths relating to 
the stratification of society. 

Of all the facts in this world that do not take hold 
of immortality, there is not one so intensely real, 
permanent, and engrossing as this of social position, 
— as you see by the circumstance that the core of all 
the great social orders the world has seen has been, 
and is still, for the most part, a privileged class of 
gentlemen and ladies arranged in a regular scale of 
precedence among themselves, but superior as a body 
to all else. 

Nothing but an ideal Christian equality, which we 
have been getting farther away from since the days of 
the Primitive Church, can prevent this subdivision of 
society into classes from taking place everywhere, — 
in the great centres of our republic as much as in old 
European monarchies. Only there position is more 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 37 

absolutely hereditary, — here it is more completely 
elective. 

— Where is the election held? and what are the quali- 
fications? and who are the electors? — said the Model. 

Nobody ever sees when the vote is taken; -there 
never is a formal vote. The women settle it mostly ; 
and they know wonderfully well what is presentable, 
and what can't stand the blaze of the chandeliers and 
the critical eye and ear of people trained to know a 
staring shade in a ribbon, a false light in a jewel, an 
ill-bred tone, an angular movement, everything that 
betrays a coarse fibre and cheap training. As a gen- 
eral thing, you do not get elegance short of two or 
three removes from the soil, out of which our best 
blood doubtless comes, — quite as good, no doubt, as 
if it came from those old prize-fighters with iron pots 
on their heads, to whom some great people are so 
fond of tracing their descent through a line of small 
artisans and petty shopkeepers whose veins have 
held "base" fluid enough to fill the Cloaca Maxima! 

Does not money go everywhere? — said the Model. 

Almost. And with good reason. For though there 
are numerous exceptions, rich people are, as I said, 
commonly altogether the most agreeable companions. 
The influence of a fine house, graceful furniture, good 
libraries, well-ordered tables, trim servants, and, above 
all, a position so secure that one becomes uncon- 
scious of it, gives a harmony and refinement to the 
character and manners which we feel, even if we 
cannot explain their charm. Yet we can get at the 
reason of it by thinking a little. 

All these appliances are to shield the sensibility 
from disagreeable contacts, and to soothe it by varied 
natural and artificial influences. In this way the 



138 THE PROFESSOR 

mind, the taste, the feelings, grow delicate, just as the 
hands grow white and soft when saved from toil and 
incased in soft gloves. The whole nature becomes 
subdued into suavity. I confess I like the quality- 
ladies better than the common kind even of literary 
ones. They have n't read the last book, perhaps, but 
they attend better to you when you are talking to 
them. If they are never learned, they make up for it 
in tact and elegance. Besides, I think, on the whole, 
there is less self-assertion in diamonds than in dog- 
mas. I don't know where you will find a sweeter 
portrait of humility than in Esther, the poor play-girl 
of King Ahasuerus; yet Esther put on her royal 
apparel when she went before her lord. I have no 
doubt she was a more gracious and agreeable person 
than Deborah, who judged the people and wrote the 
story of Sisera. The wisest woman you talk with is 
ignorant of something that you know, but an elegant 
woman never forgets her elegance. 

Dowdyiqm is clearly an expression of imperfect 
vitality. The highest fashion is intensely alive, — not 
alive necessarily to the truest and best things, but 
with its blood tingling, as it were, in all its extremi- 
ties and to the farthest point of its surface, so that 
the feather in its bonnet is as fresh as the crest of a 
fighting-cock, and the rosette on its slipper as clean- 
cut and piffipant (pronounce it English fashion, — it 
is a good word) as a dahlia. As a general rule, that 
society where flattery is acted is much more agree- 
able than that where it is spoken. Don't you see 
why? Attention and deference don't require you to 
make fine speeches expressing your sense of unworth- 
iness (lies) and returning all the compliments paid 
you. This is one reason. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 39 

— A woman of sense ought to be above flattering 
any man, — said the Model. 

\_My re/lection. Oh! oh! no wonder you did n't get 
married. Served you right.] My rema?'k. Surely, 
Madam, — if you mean by flattery telling people 
boldly to their faces that they are this or that, which 
they are not. But a woman who does not carry a 
halo of good feeling, and desire to make everybody 
contented, about with her wherever she goes, — an 
atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least 
six feet radius, which wraps every human being upon 
whom she voluntarily bestows her presence, and so 
flatters him with the comfortable thought that she is 
rather glad he is alive than otherwise, — is n't worth 
the trouble of talking to, as a woman ; she may do 
well enough to hold discussions with. 

— I don't think the Model exactly liked this. She 
said, — a little spitefully, I thought, — that a sensible 
man might stand a little praise, but would of course 
soon get sick of it, if he were in the habit of getting 
much. 

Oh, yes, — I repHed, — just as men get sick of to- 
bacco. It is notorious how apt they are to get tired 
of that vegetable. 

— That 's so! — said the young fellow John. — I 've 
got tired of my cigars and burnt 'em all up. 

I am heartily glad to hear it, — said the Model. — I 
wish they were all disposed of in the same way. 

So do I, — said the young fellow John. 

Can't you get your friends to unite with you in com- 
mitting those odious instruments of debauchery to the 
flames in which you have consumed your own? 

I wish I could, — said the young fellow John. 

It would be a noble sacrifice, — said the Model, — 



140 THE PROFESSOR 

and every American woman would be grateful to you. 
Let us burn them all in a heap out in the yard. 

That a'n't my way, — said the young fellow John ; 

— I burn 'em one 'f time, — little end in my mouth 
and big end outside. 

— I watched for the effect of this sudden change of 
programme, when it should reach the calm stillness 
of the Model's interior apprehension, as a boy watches 
for the splash of a stone which he has dropped into 
a well. But before it had fairly reached the water, 
poor Iris, who had followed the conversation with a 
certain interest until it turned this sharp corner, (for 
she seems rather to fancy the young fellow John,) 
laughed out such a clear, loud laugh, that it started us 
all off, as the locust-cry of some full-throated soprano 
drags a multitudinous chorus after it. It was plain 
that some dam or other had broken in the soul of this 
young girl, and she was squaring up old scores of 
laughter, out of which she had been cheated, with 
a grand i|ood of merriment that swept all before it. 
So we had a great laugh all round, in which the Model 

— who, if she had as many virtues as there are spokes 
to a wheel, all compacted with a personality as round 
and complete as its tire, yet wanted that one little 
addition of grace, which seems so small, and is as 
important as the lineh-pin in trundling over the rough 
ways of life — had not the tact to join. She seemed 
to be " stuffy " about it, as the young fellow John said. 
In fact, I was afraid the joke would have cost us both 
our new lady-boarders. It had no effect, however, 
except, perhaps, to hasten the departure of the elder 
of the two, who could, on the whole, be spared. 

— I had meant to make this note of our conversa- 
tion a text for a few axioms on the matter of breed- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 141 

ing. But it so happened, that, exactly at this point 
of my record, a very distinguished philosopher, whom 
several of our boarders and myself go to hear, and 
whom no doubt many of my readers follow habitually, 
treated this matter of vianners. Up to this point, if 
I have been so fortunate as to coincide with him in 
opinion, and so unfortunate as to try to express what 
he has more felicitously said, nobody is to blame ; for 
what has been given thus far was all written before 
the lecture was delivered. But what shall I do now? 
He told us it was childish to lay down rules for de- 
portment, — but he could not help laying down a few. 

Thus, — Nothing so vulgar as to be m a hurry. — 
True, but hard of application. People with short legs 
step quickly, because legs are pendulums, and swing 
more times in a minute the shorter they are. Gen- 
erally a natural rhythm runs through the whole or- 
ganization : quick pulse, fast breathing, hasty speech, 
rapid trains of thought, excitable temper. Stillness 
of person and steadiness of features are signal marks 
of good-breeding. Vulgar persons can't sit still, or, 
at least, ~they must work their limbs or features. 

Talki7tg of one'^s own ails and grievances. — Bad 
enough, but not so bad as insulting the person you 
talk with by remarking on his ill-looks, or appearing 
to notice any of his personal peculiarities. 

Apologizing. — A very desperate habit, — one that 
is rarely cured. Apology is only egotism wrong side 
out. Nine times out of ten, the first thing a man's 
companion knows of his shortcoming is from his 
apology. It is mighty presumptuous on your part to 
suppose your small failures of so much consequence 
that you must make a talk about them. 

Good dressing, quiet ways, low tones of voice, lips 



142 THE PROFESSOR 

that can wait, and eyes that do not wander, — shyness 
of personalities, except in certain intimate commun- 
ions, — to be light i7t hand in conversation, to have 
ideas, but to be able to make talk, if necessary, with- 
out them, — to belong to the company you are in, and 
not to yourself, — to have nothing in your dress or 
furniture so fine that you cannot afford to spoil it 
and get another like it, yet to preserve the harmonies 
throughout your person and dwelling: I should say 
that this was a fair capital of manners to begin with. 

Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies 
very commonly an overestimate of our special indi- 
viduality, as distinguished from our generic humanity. 
It is just here that the very highest society asserts 
its superior breeding. Among truly elegant people 
of the highest toji^ you will find more real equality in 
social intercourse than in a country village. As nuns 
drop their birth-names and become Sister Margaret 
and Sister Mary, so high-bred people drop their per- 
sonal distinctions and become brothers and sisters of 
conversational charity. Nor are fashionable people 
without their heroism. I believe there are men 
who have shown as much self-devotion in carrying 
a lone wall-flower down to the supper-table as ever 
saint or martyr in the act that has canonized his 
name. There are Florence Nightingales of the ball- 
room, whom nothing can hold back from their errands 
of mercy. They find out the red-handed, gloveless 
undergraduate of bucolic antecedents, as he squirms 
in his corner, and distil their soft words upon him 
like dew upon the green herb. They reach even the 
poor relation, whose dreary apparition saddens the 
perfumed atmosphere of the sumptuous drawing-room. 
I have known one of these angels ask, of her own 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 43 

accord^ that a desolate middle-aged man, whom no- 
body seemed to know, should be presented to her by 
the hostess. He wore no shirt-collar, — he had on 
black gloves, — and was flourishing a red bandanna 
handkerchief ! Match me this, ye proud children of 
poverty, who boast of your paltry sacrifices for each 
other ! Virtue in humble life ! What is that to the 
glorious self-renunciation of a martyr in pearls and 
diamonds? As I saw this noble woman bending 
gracefully before the social mendicant, — the white 
billows of her beauty heaving under the foam of the 
traitorous laces that half revealed them, — I should 
have wept with sympathetic emotion, but that tears, 
except as a private demonstration, are an ill-disguised 
expression of self-consciousness and vanity, which is 
inadmissible in good society. 

I have sometimes thought, with a pang, of the posi- 
tion in which political chance or contrivance might 
hereafter place some one of our fellow-citizens. It 
has happened hitherto, so far as my limited knowl- 
edge goe.s, that the President of the United States 
has always been what might be called in general 
terms a gentleman. But what if at some future time 
the choice of the people should fall upon one on whom 
that lofty title could not, by any stretch of charity, 
be bestowed ? This may happen, — how soon the 
future only knows. Think of this miserable man of 
coming political possibilities, an unpresentable boor, 
sucked into office by one of those eddies in the flow 
of popular sentiment which carry straws and chips 
into the public harbor, while the prostrate trunks of 
the monarchs of the forest hurry down on the sense- 
less stream to the gulf of political oblivion ! Think 
of him, I say, and of the concentrated gaze of good 



144 ^'^^ PROFESSOR 

society through its thousand eyes, all confluent, as 
it were, in one great burning-glass of ice that shrivels 
its wretched object in fiery torture, itself cold as the 
glacier of an unsunned cavern ! No, — there will be 
angels of good-breeding then as now, to shield the 
victim of free institutions from himself and from his 
torturers. I can fancy a lovely woman playfully with- 
drawing the knife which he would abuse by making 
it an instrument for the conveyance of food, — or, 
failing in this kind artifice, sacrificing herself by 
imitating his use of that implement ; how much 
harder than to plunge it into her bosom, like Lucre- 
tia ! I can see her studying his provincial dialect 
until she becomes the Champollion of New England 
or Western or Southern barbarisms. She has learned 
that hdow means what ; that thmkhi' is the same as 
thinking; or she has found out the meaning of that 
extraordinary monosyllable, which no single-tongued 
phonographer can make legible, prevailing on the 
banks of the Hudson and at its embouchure, and else- 
where, — what they say when they think they say 
first {fe-eest, — fe as in the French ie), — or that 
cheer means chair, — or that zcrritation means irri- 
tation, — and so of other enormities. Nothing sur- 
prises her. The highest breeding, you know, comes 
round to the Indian' standard, — to take everything 
coolly — nil adniirari, — if you happen to be learned 
and like the Roman phrase for the same thing. 

If you like the company of people that stare at you 
from head to foot to see if there is a hole in your coat, 
or if you have not grown a little older, or if your eyes 
are not yellow with jaundice, or if your complexion is 
not a little faded, and so on, and then convey the 
fact to you, in the style in which the Poor Relation 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 45 

addressed the divinity-student, — go with him as much 
as you like. I hate the sight of the wretches. Don't 
for mercy's sake think I hate thein ; the distinction 
is one my friend or I drew long ago. No matter 
where you find such people ; they are clowns. The 
rich woman who looks and talks in this way is not 
half so much a lady as her Irish servant, whose pretty 
" saving your presence," when she has to say some- 
thing which offends her natural sense of good man- 
ners, has a hint in it of the breeding of courts, and 
the blood of old Milesian kings, which very likely 
runs in her veins, — thinned by two hundred years of 
potato, which, being an under-ground fruit, tends to 
drag down the generations that are made of it to the 
earth from which it came, and, filling their veins with 
starch, turn them into a kind of human vegetable. 

I say, if you like such people, go with them. But 
I am going to make a practical application of the 
example at the beginning of this particular record, 
which some young people who are going to choose 
professional advisers by-and-by may remember and 
thank me for. If you are making choice of a phy- 
sician, be sure you get one, if possible, with a cheer- 
ful and serene countenance. A physician is not — 
at least, ought not to be — an executioner ; and a 
sentence of death on his face is as bad as a warrant 
for execution signed by the Governor. As a general 
rule, no man has a right to tell another by word or 
look that he is going to die. It may be necessary in 
some extreme cases ; but as a rule, it is the last ex- 
treme of impertinence which one human being can 
offer to another. " You have killed me," said a 
patient once to a physician who had rashly told him 
he was incurable. He ought to have lived six months, 



146 THE PROFESSOR 

but he was dead in six weeks. If we will only let 
Nature and the God of Nature alone, persons will 
commonly learn their condition as early as they ought 
to know it, and not be cheated out of their natural 
birthright of hope or recovery, which is intended to 
accompany sick people as long as life is comfortable, 
and is graciously replaced by the hope of heaven, or 
at least of rest, when life has become a burden which 
the bearer is ready to let fall. 

Underbred people tease their sick and dying friends 
to death. The chance of a gentleman or lady with a 
given mortal ailment to live a certain time is as good 
again as that of the common sort of coarse people. 
As you go down the social scale, you reach a point at 
length where the common talk in sick rooms is of 
churchyards and sepulchres, and a kind of perpetual 
vivisection is forever carried on, upon the person of 
the miserable suiferer. 

And so, in choosing your clergyman, other things 
being equal, prefer the one of a wholesome and cheer- 
ful habit of mind and body. If you can get along with 
people who carry a certificate in their faces that their 
goodness is so great as to make them very miserable, 
your children cannot. And whatever offends one of 
these little ones cannot be right in the eyes of Him 
who loved them so ,well. 

After all, as yon are a gentleman or a lady, you will 
probably select gentlemen for your bodily and spiritual 
advisers, and then all will be right. 

This repetition of the above words, — gentle7na7t and 
lady, — which could not be conveniently avoided, re- 
minds me what strange uses are made of them by those 
who ought to know what they mean. Thus, at a mar- 
riage ceremony, once, of two very excellent persons 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 47 

who had been at service, instead of. Do you take this 
man, etc. ? and, Do you take this woman? how do you 
think the officiating clergyman put the questions? It 
was, Do you. Miss So and So, take this Gentleman? 
and, Do you, Mr. This or That, take this Lady ? ! 
What would any English duchess, ay, or the Queen 
of England herself, have thought, if the Archbishop 
of Canterbury had called her and her bridegroom any- 
thing but plain woman and man at such a time? 

I don't doubt the Poor Relation thought it was all 
very fine, if she happened to be in the church ; but if 
the worthy man who uttered these monstrous words — 
monstrous in such a connection — had known the ludi- 
crous surprise, the convulsion of inward disgust and 
contempt, that seized upon many of the persons who 
were present, — had guessed what a sudden flash of 
light it threw on the Dutch gilding, the pinchbeck, the 
shabby, perking pretension belonging to certain social 
layers, — so inherent in their whole mode of being 
that the holiest offices of religion cannot exclude its 
impertinences, — the good man would have given his 
marriage-fee twice over to recall that superb and full- 
blown vulgarism. Any persons w^hom it could please 
could have no better notion of what the words referred 
to signify than of the meaning oi apsides TiXvCi asymptotes. 

Man ! Sir ! Woman ! Sir ! Gentility is a fine 
thing, not to be undervalued, as I have been trying to 
explain ; but humanity comes before that. 

" When Adam delved and Eve span, 
Who was then the gentleman ? " 

The beauty of that plainness of speech and manners 
which comes from the finest training is not to be un- 
derstood by those whose habitat is below a certain 



148 THE PROFESSOR 

level. Just as the exquisite sea-anemones and al) the 
graceful ocean-flowers die out at some fathoms below 
the surface, the elegances and suavities of life die out 
one by one as we sink through the social scale. For- 
tunately, the virtues are more tenacious of life, and last 
pretty well until we get down to the mud of absolute 
pauperism, where they do not flourish greatly. 

— I had almost*forgotten about our boarders. As 
the Model of all the Virtues is about to leave us, I find 
myself wondering what is the reason we are not all 
very soriy. Surely we all like good persons. She 
is a good person. Therefore we like her. — Only we 
don't. 

This brief syllogism, and its briefer negative, involv- 
ing the principle which some English conveyancer 
borrowed from a French wit and embodied in the lines 
by which Dr. Fell is made unamiably immortal, — this 
syllogism, I say, is one that most persons have had 
occasion to construct and demolish, respecting some- 
body or other, as I have done for the Model. " Pious 
and painefull." Why has that excellent old phrase 
gone out of use? Simply because these good paine- 
full or painstaking persons proved to be such nui- 
sances in the long run, that the word " painefull " came, 
before people thought of it, to mean paingivi7ig\nsit^6. 
of painstaking. 

— So, the old fellah 's off to-morrah, — said the 
young man John. 

Old fellow? — said I, — whom do you mean? 
Why, the one that came with our little beauty, — 
the old fellah in petticoats. 

— Now that means something, — said I to myself, 
— These rough young rascals very often hit the nail 
on the head, if they do strike with their eyes shut. A 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 149 

real woman does a great many things without know- 
ing why she does them ; but these pattern machines 
mix up their intellects with everything they do, just 
like men. They can't help it, no doubt ; but we can't 
help getting sick of them, either. Intellect is to a 
woman's nature what her watch-spring skirt is to her 
dress ; it ought to underlie her silks and embroideries, 
but not to show itself too staringly on the outside. — 
You don't know, perhaps, but I will tell you ; — the 
brain is the palest of all the internal organs, and the 
heart the reddest. Whatever comes from the brain 
carries the hue of the place it came from, and whatever 
comes from the heart carries the heat and color of its 
birthplace. 

The young man John did not hear my soliloque, 
of course, but sent up one more bubble from our sink- 
ing conversation, in the form of a statement, that she 
was at liberty to go to a personage who receives no 
visits, as is commonly supposed, from virtuous people. 

Why, I ask again, (of my reader,) should a person 
who never did anybody any wrong, but, on the con- 
trary, is an estimable and intelligent, nay, a particu- 
larly enlightened and exemplary member of society, 
fail to inspire interest, love, and devotion? Because 
of the reversed current in the flow of thought and 
emotion. The red heart sends all its instincts up to 
the white brain to be analyzed, chilled, blanched, and 
so become pure reason, which is just exactly what we 
do not want of woman as woman. The current should 
run the other way. The nice, calm, cold thought, 
which in women shapes itself so rapidly that they 
hardly know it as thought, should always travel to 
the lips vid the heart. It does so in those women 
whom all love and admire. It travels the wrong way 



I50 THE PROFESSOR 

in the Model. That is the reason why the Little 
Gentleman said, " I hate her, I hate her." That is 
the reason why the young man John called her the 
" old fellah," and banished her to the company of the 
great Unpresentable. That is the reason why I, 
the Professor, am picking her to pieces with scalpel 
and forceps. That is the reason why the young girl 
whom she has befriended repays her kindness with 
gratitude and respect, rather than with the devotion 
and passionate fondness which lie sleeping beneath 
the calmness of her amber eyes. I can see her, as 
she sits between this estimable and most correct of 
personages and the misshapen, crotchety, often violent 
and explosive little man on the other side of her, lean- 
ing and swaying towards him as she speaks, and look- 
ing into his sad eyes as if she found some fountain in 
them at which her soul could quiet its thirst. 

Women like the Model are a natural product of a 
chilly climate and high culture. It is not 

" The frolic wind that breathes the spring, 
Zephyr with Aurora playing," 

when the two meet 

— " on beds of violets blue, 
And fresh-blown roses washed in dew," 

that claim such women as their offspring. It is 
rather the east wind, as it blows out of the fogs of 
Newfoundland, and clasps a clear-eyed wintry noon on 
the chill bridal couch of a New England ice-quarry. 
— Don't throw up your cap now, and hurrah as if this 
were giving up everything, and turning against the 
best growth of our latitudes, — the daughters of the 
soil. The brain-women never interest us like the heart- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 151 

women ; white roses please less than red. But our 
Northern seasons have a narrow green streak of spring, 
as well as a broad white zone of winter, — they have 
a glowing band of sammer and a golden stripe of 
autumn in their many-colored wardrobe ; and women 
are born to us that wear all these hues of earth and 
heaven in their souls. Our ice-eyed brain-women are 
really admirable, if we only ask of them just what they 
can give, and no more. Only compare them, talking 
or writing, with one of those babbling, chattering 
dolls, of warmer latitudes, who do not know enough 
even to keep out of print, and who are interesting to 
us only as specimens oi arrest of develop7nent for our 
psychological cabinets. 

Good-bye, Model of all the Virtues ! We can spare 
you now. A little clear perfection, undiluted with 
human weakness, goes a great way. Go ! be useful, 
be honorable and honored, be just, be charitable, talk 
pure reason, and help to disenchant the world by the 
light of an achromatic understanding. Good-bye! 
Where is my Beranger ? I must read a verse or two 
of '^Fretillon." 

. Fair play for all. But don't claim incompatible 
qualities for anybody. Justice is a very rare virtue 
in our community. Everything that public sentiment 
cares about is put into a Papin's digester, and boiled 
under high pressure till all is turned into one homo- 
geneous pulp, and the very bones give up their jelly. 
What are all the strongest epithets of our dictionary 
to us now? The critics and politicians, and espe- 
cially the philanthropists, have chewed them, till they 
are mere wads of syllable-fibre, without a suggestion 
of their old pungency and power. 

Justice! A good man respects the rights even of 



152 THE PROFESSOR 

brute matter and arbitrary symbols. If he writes the 
same word twice in succession, by accident, he always 
erases the one that stands second -, has not the first- 
comer the prior right? This act of abstract justice, 
which I trust many of my readers, like myself, have 
often performed, is a curious anti-illustration, by the 
way, of the absolute wickedness of human disposi- 
tions. Why does nH a man always strike out \\\t first 
of the two words, to gratify his diabolical love of in- 
justice? 

So, I say, we owe a genuine, substantial tribute of 
respect to these filtered intellects which have left their 
womanhood on the strainer. They are so clear that 
it is a pleasure at times to look at the world of thought 
through them. But the rose and purple tints of richer 
natures they cannot give us, and it is not just to them 
to ask it. 

Fashionable society gets at these rich .natures very 
often in a way one would hardly at first think of. It 
loves vitality above all things, sometimes disguised 
by affecte<i languor, always well kept under by the 
laws of good-breeding, — but still it loves abundant 
life, opulent and showy organizations, — the spherical 
rather than the plane trigonometry of female archi- 
tecture, — plenty of red blood, flashing eyes, tropical 
voices, and forms that bear the splendors of dress 
without growing palfe beneath their lustre. Among 
these you will find the most delicious women you will 
ever meet, — women whom dress and flattery and the 
round of city gayeties cannot spoil, — talking with 
whom, you forget their diamonds and laces, — and 
around whom all the nice details of elegance, which 
the cold-blooded beauty next them is scanning so 
nicely, blend in one harmonious whole, too perfect 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 53 

to be disturbed by the petulant sparkle of a jewel, or 
the yellow glare of a bangle, or the gay toss of a 
feather. 

There are many things that I, personally, love bet- 
ter than fashion or wealth. Not to speak of those 
highest objects of our love and loyalty, I think I love 
ease and independence better than the golden slavery 
of perpetual matinees and soirees^ or the pleasures of 
accumulation. 

But fashion and wealth are two very solemn reali- 
ties, which the frivolous class of moralists have talked 
a great deal of silly stuff about. Fashion is only the 
attempt to realize Art in living forms and social in- 
tercourse. What business has a man who knows 
nothing about the beautiful, and cannot pronounce 
the word view^ to talk about fashion to a set of peo- 
ple who, if one of the quality left a card at their doors, 
would contrive to keep it on the very top of their heap 
of the names of their two-story acquaintances, till it 
was as yellow as the Codex Vaticanus ? 

Wealth, too, — what an endless repetition of the 
same foolish trivialities about it ! Take the single 
fact of its alleged uncertain tenure and transitory 
character. In old times, when men were all the time 
fighting and robbing each other, — in those tropical 
countries where the Sabeans and the Chaldeans stole 
all a man's cattle and camels, and there were frightful 
tornadoes and rains of fire from heaven, it was true 
enough that riches took wings to themselves not un- 
frequently in a very unexpected way. But, with com- 
mon prudence in investments, it is not so now. In 
fact, there is nothing earthly that lasts so well, on the 
whole, as money. A man's learning dies with him ; 
even his virtues fade out of remembrance; but the 



154 ^^^ PROFESSOR 

dividends on the stocks he bequeathes to his children 
live and keep his memory green. 

I do not think there is much courage or originality 
in giving utterance to truths that everybody knows, 
but which get overlaid by conventional trumpery. 
The only distinction which it is necessary to point 
out to feeble-minded folk is this: that, in asserting 
the breadth and depth of that significance which 
gives to fashion and fortune their tremendous power, 
we do not indorse the extravagances which often dis- 
grace the one, nor the meanness which often degrades 
the other. 

A remark which seems to contradict a universally 
current opinion is not generally to be taken " neat," 
but watered with the ideas of commonsense and com- 
monplace people. So, if any of my young friends 
should be tempted to waste their substance on white 
kids and " all-rounds,'' or to insist on becoming mil- 
lionnaires at once, by anything I have said, I will give 
them references to some of the class referred to, well 
known to the public as providers of literary diluents, 
who will weaken any truth so that there is not an old 
woman in the land who cannot take it with perfect 
impunity. 

I am afraid some of the blessed saints in diamonds 
will think I mean to, flatter them. I hope not; — if 
I do, set it down as a weakness. But there is so 
much foolish talk about wealth and fashion, (which, 
of course, draw a good many heartless and essentially 
vulgar people into the glare of their candelabra, but 
which have a real respectability and meaning, if we 
will only look at them stereoscopically, with both 
eyes instead of one,) that I thought it a duty to 
speak a few words for them. Why can't somebody 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 55 

give us a list of things that everybody thinks and no- 
body says, and another list of things that everybody 
says and nobody thinks ? 

Lest my parish should suppose we have forgotten 
graver matters in these lesser topics, I beg them to 
drop these trifles and read the following lesson for 
the day. 

THE TWO STREAMS. 

Behold the rocky wall 
That down its sloping sides 
Pours the swift rain-drops, blending, as they fall, 
In rushing river-tides ! 

Yon stream, whose sources run 
Turned by a pebble's edge, 
Is Athabasca, rolling toward the sun 

Through the cleft mountain-ledge. 

The slendor rill had strayed, 
But for the slanting stone, 
To evening's ocean, with the tangled braid 
Of foam-fiecked Oregon. 

So from the heights of Will 
Life's parting stream descends, 
And, as a moment turns its slender rill, 
Each widening torrent bends, — 

From the same cradle's side. 
From the same mother's knee, — 
One to long darkness and the frozen tide, 
One to the Peaceful Sea ! 



156 THE PROFESSOR 



VII. 

Our landlady's daughter is a young lady of some 
pretensions to gentility. She wears her bonnet well 
back on her head, which is known by all to be a mark 
of high breeding. She wears her trains very long, as 
the great ladies do in Europe. To be sure, their 
dresses are so made only to sweep the tapestried 
floors of chateaux and palaces ; as those odious aris- 
tocrats of the other side do not go draggling through 
the mud in silks and satins, but, forsooth, must ride 
in coaches when they are in full dress. It is true, 
that, considering various habits of the American 
people, also the little accidents which the best-kept 
sidewalks are liable to, a lady who has swept a mile 
of them is i)Ot exactly in such a condition that one 
would care to be her neighbor. But then there is no 
need of being so hard on these slight weaknesses of 
the poor, dear women as our little deformed gentle- 
man was the other day. 

— There are no such women as the Boston women, 
Sir, — he said. Forty-two degrees, north latitude, 
Rome, Sir, Boston, Sir ! They had grand women in 
old Rome, Sir, — and the women bore such men- 
children as never the world saw before. And so it 
was here. Sir. I tell you, the revolution the Boston 
boys started had to run in woman's milk before it ran 
in man's blood. Sir ! 

But confound the make-believe women we have 
turned loose in our streets ! — where do ihcy come 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 157 

from ? Not out of Boston parlors, I trust. Why, 
there is n't a beast or a bird that would drag its tail 
through the dirt in the way these creatures do their 
dresses. Because a queen or a duchess wears long 
robes on great occasions, a maid-of-all-work or a 
factory-girl thinks she must make herself a nuisance 
by trailing through the street, picking up and carrying 
alDout with her — pah ! that 's what I call getting vul- 
garity into your bones and marrow. Making believe 
be what you are not is the essence of vulgarity. Show 
over dirt is the one attribute of vulgar people. If 
any man can walk behind one of these women and see 
what she rakes up as she goes, and not feel squeamish, 
he has got a tough stomach. I would n't let one of 
'em into my room without serving 'em as David served 
Saul at .the cave in the wilderness, — cut off his skirts. 
Sir! cut off his ski'-ts! 

I suggested, that I had seen some pretty stylish 
ladies who offended in the way he condemned. 

Stylish wojnen, I don't doubt, — said the Little 
Gentleman. — Don't tell me that a true lady ever 
sacrifices the duty of keeping all about her sweet and 
clean to the wish of making a vulgar show. I won't 
believe it of a lady. There are some things that no 
fashion has any right to touch, and cleanliness is one 
of those things. If a woman wishes to show that her 
husband or her father has got money, which she wants 
and means to spend, but doesn't know how, let her 
buy a yard or two of silk and pin it to her dress when 
she goes out to walk, but let her unpin it before she 
goes into the house ; — there may be poor women that 
will think it worth disinfecting. It is an insult to a 
respectable laundress to carry such things into a house 
for her to deal with. I don't hke the Bloomers any 



158 THE PROFESSOR 

too well, — in fact, I never saw but one, and she — or 
he, or it — had a mob of boys after her, or whatever 
you call the creature, as if she had been a — 

The Little Gentleman stopped short, — flushed 
somewhat, and looked round with that involuntary, 
suspicious glance which the subjects of any bodily 
misfortune are very apt to cast round them. His eye 
wandered over the company, none of whom, excepting 
myself and one other had, probably, noticed the move- 
ment. They fell at last on Iris, — his next neighbor, 
you remember. 

— We know in a moment, on looking suddenly at 
a person, if that person's eyes have been fixed on us. 
Sometimes we are conscious of it before we turn so as 
to see the person. Strange secrets of curiosity, of 
impertinence, of malice, of love, leak out in this way. 
There is no need of Mrs. Felix Lorraine's reflection 
in the mirror, to tell us that she is plotting evil for 
us behind our backs. We know it, as we know by 
the ominou^ stillness of a child that some mischief or 
other is going on. A young girl betrays, in a moment, 
that her eyes have been feeding on the face where you 
find them fixed, and not merely brushing over it with 
their pencils of blue or brown light. 

A certain involuntary adjustment assimilates us, 
you may also observe^ to that upon which we look. 
Roses redden the cheeks of her who stoops to gather 
them, and buttercups turn little people's chins yellow. 
When we look at a vast landscape, our chests expand 
as if we would enlarge to fill it. When we examine a 
minute object, we naturally contract, not only our fore- 
heads, but all our dimensions. If I see two men 
wrestling, I wrestle too, with my limbs and features. 
When a country-fellow comes upon the stage, you will 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 159 

see twenty faces in the boxes putting on the bumpkin 
expression. There is no need of multiplying instances 
to reach this generalization ; every person and thing 
we look upon puts its special mark upon us. If this 
is repeated often enough, we get a permanent resem- 
blance to it, or, at least, a fixed aspect which we took 
from it. Husband and wife come to look alike at last, 
as has often been noticed. It is a common saying of 
a jockey, that he is " all horse " ; and I have often 
fancied that milkmen get a stiff, upright carriage, and 
an angular movement of the arm, that remind one of 
a pump and the working of its handle. 

All this came in by accident, just because I happened 
to mention that the Little Gentleman found that Iris 
had been looking at him with her soul in her eyes, 
when his glance rested on her after wandering round 
the company. What he thought, it is hard to say ; 
but the shadow of suspicion faded off from his face, 
and he looked calmly into the amber eyes, resting his 
cheek upon the hand that wore the red jewel. 

— If it were a possible thing, — women are such 
strange creatures ! Is there any trick that love and 
their own fancies do not play them ? Just see how 
they marry ! A woman that gets hold of a bit of 
manhood is like one of those Chinese wood-carvers 
who work on any odd, fantastic root that comes to 
hand, and, if it is only bulbous above and bifurcated 
below, he will always contrive to make a man — such as 
he is — out of it. I should like to see any kind of a 
man, distinguishable from a Gorilla, that some good and 
even pretty woman could not shape a husband out of. 

— A child, — yes, if you choose to call her so, — 
but such a child! Do you know how Art brings all 
ages together? There is no age to the angels and 



l6o THE PROFESSOR 

ideal human forms among which the artist lives, and 
he shares their youth until his hand trembles and his 
eye grows dim. The youthful painter talks of white- 
bearded Leonardo as if he were a brother, and the 
veteran forgets that Raphael died at an age to which 
his own is of patriarchal antiquity. 

But why this lover of the beautiful should be so 
drawn to one whom Nature has wronged so deeply 
seems hard to explain. Pity, I suppose. They say 
that leads to love. 

— I thought this matter over until I became excited 
and curious, and determined to set myself more seri- 
ously at work to find out what was going on in these 
wild hearts and where their passionate lives were drift- 
ing. I say wild hearts and passionate lives, because 
I think I can look through this seeming calmness of 
youth and this apparent feebleness of organization, 
and see that Nature, whom it is very hard to cheat, is 
only waiting as the sapper waits in his mine, knowing 
that all is in readiness and the slow-match burning 
quietly down to the powder. He will leave it by-and- 
by, and then it will take care of itself. 

One need not wait to see the smoke coming through 
the roof of a house and the flames breaking out of the 
windows to know that the building is on fire. Hark ! 
There is a quiet, steady, unobtrusive, crisp, not loud, 
but very knowing little creeping crackle that is toler- 
ably intelligible. There is a whiff of something float- 
ing about, suggestive of toasting shingles. Also a 
sharp pyroligneous-acid pungency in the air that 
stings one's eyes. Let us get up and see what is 
going on. — Oh, — oh, — oh! do you know what has 
got hold of you ? It is the great red dragon that is 
born of the little red eggs we call sparks^ with his 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. l6l 

hundred blowing red manes, and his thousand lashing 
red tails, and his multitudinous red eyes glaring at 
every crack and key-hole, and his countless red 
tongues lapping the beams he is going to crunch 
presently, and his hot breath warping the panels and 
cracking the glass and making old timber sweat that 
had forgotten it was ever ahve with sap. Run for 
your life ! leap ! or you will be a cinder in five min- 
utes, that nothing but a coroner would take for the 
wreck of a human being ! 

If any gentleman will have the kindness to stop 
this run-away comparison, I shall be much obliged to 
him. All I intended to say was, that we need not 
wait for hearts to break out in flames to know that 
they are full of combustibles and that a spark has got 
among them. I don't pretend to say or know what 
it is that brings these two persons together ; — and 
when I say together, I only mean that there is an evi- 
dent affinity of some kind or other which makes their 
commonest intercourse strangely significant, as that 
each seems to understand a look or a word of the 
other. When the young girl laid her hand on the 
Little Gentleman's arm, — which so greatly shocked 
the Model, you may remember, — I saw that she had 
learned the Hon-tamer's secret. She masters him, 
and yet I can see she has a kind of awe of him, as 
the man who goes into the cage has of the monster 
that he makes a baby of. 

One of two things must happen. The first is love, 
downright love, on the part of this young girl, for the 
poor little misshapen man. You may laugh, if you 
like. But women are apt to love the men who they 
think have the largest capacity of loving ; — and who 
can love like one that has thirsted all his life long for 



1 62 THE PROFESSOR 

the smile of youth and beauty, and seen it fly his 
presence as the wave ebbed from the parched lips of 
him whose fabled punishment is the perpetual type 
of human longing and disappointment? What would 
become of ///;;/, if this fresh soul should stoop upon 
him in her first young passion, as the flamingo drops 
out of the sky upon some lonely and dark lagoon in 
the marshes of Cagliari, with a flutter of scarlet feath- 
ers and a kindling of strange fires in the shadowy 
waters that hold her burning image? 

— Marry her, of course? — Why, no, not of course. 
I should think the chance less, on the whole, that he 
would be willing to marry her than she to marry him. 

There is one other thing that might happen. If 
the interest he awakes in her gets to be a deep one, 
and yet has nothing of love in it, she will glance off" 
from him into some great passion or other. All ex- 
citements run to love in women of a certain — let us 
not say age, but youth. An electrical current passing 
through a (joil of wire makes a magnet of a bar of iron 
lying within it, but not touching it. So a woman is 
turned into a love-magnet by a tingling current of 
life running round her. I should like to see one 
of them balanced on a pivot properly adjusted, and 
watch if she did not turn so as to point north and 
south, — as she would, if the love-currents are like 
those of the earth our mother. 

Pray, do you happen to remember Wordsworth's 
" Boy of Windermere " ? This boy used to put his 
hands to his mouth, and shout aloud, mimicking the 
hooting of the owls, who would answer him 

" with quivering peals, 
And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud 
Redoubled and redoubled." 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 63 

When they failed to answer him, and he hung listen- 
ing intently for their voices, he would sometimes 
catch the faint sound of far distant waterfalls, or the 
whole scene around him would imprint itself with new 
force upon his perceptions. — Read the sonnet, if you 
please; — it is Wordsworth all over, — trivial in sub- 
ject, solemn in style, vivid in description, prolix in 
detail, true metaphysically, but immensely suggestive 
of " imagination,'' to use a mild term, when related as 
an actual fact of a sprightly youngster. 

All I want of it is to enforce the principle, that, 
when the door of the soul is once opened to a guest, 
there is no knowing who will come in next. 

— Our young girl keeps up her early habit of 
sketching heads and characters. Nobody is, I should 
think, more faithful and exact in the drawing of the 
academical figures given her as lessons ; but there is 
a perpetual arabesque of fancies that runs round the 
margin of her drawings, and there is one book which 
I know she keeps to run riot in, where, if anywhere, 
a shrewd eye would be most likely to read her 
thoughts. This book of hers I mean to see, if I can 
get at it honorably. 

I have never yet crossed the threshold of the Little 
Gentleman's chamber. How he lives, when he once 
gets within it, I can only guess. His hours are late, 
as I have said ; often, on waking late in the night, I 
see the light through cracks in his window-shutters on 
the wall of the house opposite. If the times of witch- 
craft were not over, I should be afraid to be so close 
a neighbor to a place from which there come such 
strange noises. Sometimes it is the dragging of 
something heavy over the floor, that makes me shiver 
to hear it, — it sounds so like what people that kill 



164 THE PROFESSOR 

other people have to do now and then. Occasionally 
I hear very sweet strains of music, — whether of a 
wind or stringed instrument, or a human voice, 
strange as it may seem, I have often tried to find out, 
but through the partition I could not be quite sure. 
If I have not heard a woman cry and moan, and then 
again laugh as though she would die laughing, I have 
heard sounds so like them that — I am a fool to con- 
fess it — I have covered my head with the bedclothes ; 
for I have had a fancy in my dreams that I could 
hardly shake off when I woke up, about that so-called 
witch that was his great-grandmother, or whatever it 
was, — a sort of fancy that she visited the Little 
Gentleman, — a young woman in old-fashioned dress, 
with a red ring round her white neck, — not a neck- 
lace, but a dull stain. 

Of course you don't suppose that I have any foolish 
superstitions about the matter, — I, the Professor, who 
have seen enough to take all that nonsense out of any 
man's head ! It is not our beliefs that frighten us 
half so much as our fancies. A man not only believes, 
but knows he runs a risk, whenever he steps into a 
railroad car ; but it does n't worry him much. On the 
other hand, carry that man across a pasture a little 
way from some dreary country-village, and show him 
an old house where there were strange deaths a good 
many years ago, and there are rumors of ugly spots 
on the walls, — the old man hung himself in the gar- 
ret, that is certain, and ever since the country-people 
have called it " the haunted house," — the owners 
have n't been able to let it since the last tenants left 
on account of the noises, — so it has fallen into sad 
decay, and the moss grows on the rotten shingles of 
the roof, and the clapboards have turned black, and 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 165 

the windows rattle like teeth that chatter with fear, 
and the walls of the house begin to lean as if its knees 
were shaking, — take the man who didnH mind the 
real risk of the cars to that old house, on some dreary 
November evening, and ask him to sleep there alone, 
— how do you think he will like it ? He does n't be- 
lieve one word of ghosts, — but then he knows, that, 
whether waking or sleeping, his imagination will peo- 
ple the haunted chambers with ghostly images. It is 
not what we believe, as I said before, that frightens 
us commonly, but what we conceive. A principle that 
reaches a good way, if I am not mistaken. I say, 
then, that, if these odd sounds coming from the Little 
Gentleman's chamber sometimes make me nervous, 
so that I cannot get to sleep, it is not because I sup- 
pose he is engaged in any unlawful or mysterious way. 
The only wicked suggestion that ever came into my 
head was one that was founded on the landlady's 
story of his having a pile of gold ; it was a ridiculous 
fancy ; besides, I suspect the story of sweating gold 
was only one of the many fables got up to make the 
Jews odious and afford a pretext for plundering them. 
As for the sound like a woman laughing and crying, 
I never said it was a woman's voice ; for, in the first 
place, I could only hear indistinctly ; and, secondly, 
he may have an organ, or some queer instrument or 
other, with what they call the vox humana stop. If 
he moves his bed round to get away from the window, 
or for any such reason, there is nothing very frightful 
in that simple operation. Most of our foolish con- 
ceits explain themselves in some such simple way. 
And yet, for all that, I confess that, when I woke up 
the other evening, and heard, first a sweet complain- 
ing cry, and then footsteps, and then the dragging 



1 66 THE PROFESSOR 

sound, — nothing but his bed, I am quite sure, — I 
felt a stirring in the roots of my hair as the feasters 
did in Keats's terrible poem of " Lamia." 

There is nothing very odd in my feeling nervous 
when I happen to lie awake and get listening for 
sounds. Just keep your ears open any time after 
midnight, when you are lying in bed in a lone attic of 
a dark night. What horrid, strange, suggestive, un- 
accountable noises you will hear ! The stillness of 
night is a vulgar error. All the dead things seem to 
be alive. Crack ! That is the old chest of drawers ; 
you never hear it crack in the daytime. Creak ! 
There 's a door ajar ; you know you shut them all. 
Where can that latch be that rattles so ? Is anybody 
trying it softly ? or, worse than any body^ is — ? 
(Cold shiver.) Then a sudden gust that jars all the 
windows ; — very strange! — there does not seem to 
be any wind about that it belongs to. When it stops, 
you hear the worms boring in the powdery beams 
overhead. (Then steps outside, — a stray animal, no 
doubt. All right, — but a gentle moisture breaks out 
all over you ; and then something like a whistle or a 
cry, — another gust of wind, perhaps; that accounts 
for the rustling that just made your heart roll over and 
tumble about, so that it felt more like a live rat under 
your ribs than a part o'f your own body ; then a crash 
of something that has fallen, — blown over, very likely 
— Pater 7wster, qui es in coelis ! for you are damp and 
cold, and sitting bolt upright, and the bed trembling 
so that the death-watch is frightened and has stopped 
ticking ! 

No, — night is an awful time for strange noises and 
secret doings. Who ever dreamed, till one of our 
sleepless neighbors told us of it, of that Walpurgis 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 6/ 

gathering of birds and beasts of prey, — foxes, and 
owls, and crows, and eagles, that come from all the 
country round on moonshiny nights to crunch the 
clams and muscles, and pick out the eyes of dead 
fishes that the storm has thrown on Chelsea Beach? 
Our old mother Nature has pleasant and cheery tones 
enough for us when she comes in her dress of blue 
and gold over the eastern hill-top ; but when she 
follows us up-stairs to our beds in her suit of black 
velvet and diamonds, every creak of her sandals and 
every whisper of her lips is full of mystery and fear. 

You understand, then, distinctly, that I do not be- 
lieve there is anything about this singular little neigh- 
bor of mine which is as it should not be. Probably 
a visit to his room would clear up all that has puzzled 
me, and make me laugh at the notions which began, 
I suppose, in nightmares, and ended by keeping my 
imagination at work so as almost to make me uncom- 
fortable at times. But it is not so easy to visit him 
as some of our other boarders, for various reasons 
which^I will not stop to mention. I think some of 
them are rather pleased to get " the Professor " under 
their ceilings. 

The young man John, for instance, asked me to 
come up one day and try some " old Burbon," which 
he said was A i. On asking him what was the num- 
ber of his room, he answered, that it was forty-leven, 
sky-parlor floor, but that I shouldn't find it, if he 
didn't go ahead to show me the way. I followed 
him to his habitat^ being very willing to see in what 
kind of warren he burrowed, and thinking I might 
pick up something about the boarders who had ex- 
cited my curiosity. 

Mighty close quarters they were where the young 



1 68 THE PROFESSOR 

man John bestowed himself and his furniture; this 
last consisting of a bed, a chair, a bureau, a trunk, 
and numerous pegs with coats and " pants " and 
"vests," — as he was in the habit of calling waist- 
coats and pantaloons or trousers, — hanging up as if 
the owner had melted out of them. Several prints 
were pinned up unframed, — among them that grand 
national portrait-piece, " Barnum presenting Ossian 
E. Dodge to Jenny Lind," and a picture of a famous 
trot, in which I admired anew the cabalistic air of 
that imposing array of expressions, and especially the 
Italicized word, " Dan Mace 7iames b. h. Major Slo- 
cum," and "Hiram Woodruff naines g. m. Lady 
Smith." "Best three in five. Time: 2.40, 2.46, 
2.50.'" 

That set me thinking how very odd this matter of 
trotting horses is, as an index of the mathematical 
exactness of the laws of living mechanism. I saw 
Lady Suffolk trot a mile in 2.26. Flora Temple has 
trotted closfe down to 2.20 ; and Ethan Allen in 2.25, 
or less. Many horses have trotted their mile under 
2.30; none that I remember in public as low down 
as 2.20. From five to ten secojids, then, in about a 
hundred and sixty is the whole range of the maxima 
of the present race of trotting-horses. The same 
thing is seen in the running of men. Many can run 
a mile in five minutes ; but when one comes to the 
fractions below, they taper down until somewhere 
about 4.30 the maximum is reached. Averages of 
masses have been studied more than averages of 
maxima and minima. We know from the Registrar- 
General's Reports, that a certain number of children 
— say from one to two dozen — die every year in 
England from drinking hot water out of spouts of 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 169 

teakettles. We know that, among suicides, women 
and men past a certain age almost never use fire-arms. 
A woman who has made up her mind to die is still 
afraid of a pistol or a gun. Or is it that the explo- 
sion would derange her costume ? I say, averages of 
masses we have ; but our tables of maxima we owe to 
the sporting men more than to the philosophers. The 
lesson their experience teaches is, that Nature makes 
no leaps, — does nothing per saltiim. The greatest 
brain that ever lived, no doubt, was only a small frac- 
tion of an idea ahead of the second best. Just look 
at the chess-players. Leaving out the phenomenal 
exceptions, the nice shades that separate the skilful 
ones show how closely their brains approximate, — 
almost as closely as chronometers. Such a person is 
a "/Cv//;^///-player," — he must have that piece given 
him. Another must have two pawns. Another, 
"pawn and two," or one pawn and two moves. Then 
we find one who claims " pawn and move," holding 
himself, with this fractional advantage, a match for 
one wJio would be pretty sure to beat him playing 
even. — So much are minds alike ; and you and I 
think we are "peculiar," — that Nature broke her jelly- 
mould after shaping our cerebral convolutions ! So I 
reflected, standing and looking at the picture. 

— I say, Governor, — broke in the young man 
John, — them bosses '11 stay jest as well, if you 11 only 
set down. I Ve had 'em this year, and they have n't 
stirred. — He spoke, and handed the chair towards 
me, — seating himself, at the same time, on the end 
of the bed. 

You have lived in this house some time? — I said, 
— with a note of interrogation at the end of the state- 
ment. 



I/O THE PROFESSOR 

Do I look as if I 'd lost much flesh ? — said he, — 
answering my question by another. 

No, — said I ; — for that matter, I think you do credit 
to "the bountifully furnished table of the excellent 
lady who provides so liberally for the company that 
meets around her hospitable board." 

[The sentence in quotation-marks was from one of 
those disinterested editorials in small type, which I 
suspect to have been furnished by a friend of the 
landlady's, and paid for as an advertisement. This 
impartial testimony to the superior qualities of the 
establishment and its head attracted a number of 
applicants for admission, and a couple of new boarders 
made a brief appearance at the table. One of them 
was of the class of people who grumble if they don't 
get canvas-backs and woodcocks every day, for three- 
fifty per week. The other was subject to somnambu- 
lism, or walking in the night, when he ought to have 
been asleep in his bed. In this state he walked into 
several of jthe boarders' chambers, his eyes wide open, 
as is usual with somnambulists, and, from some odd 
instinct or other, wishing to know what the hour was, 
got together a number of their watches, for the purpose 
of comparing them, as it would seem. Among them 
was a repeater, belonging to our young Marylander. 
He happened to wake up while the somnambulist was 
in his chamber, and, not knowing his infirmity, caught 
hold of him and gave him a dreadful shaking, after 
which he tied his hands and feet, and so left him 
till morning, when he introduced him to a gentleman 
used to taking care of such cases of somnambulism.] 

If you, my reader, will please to skip backward, over 
this parenthesis, you will come to our conversation, 
which it has interrupted. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 171 

It a'n't the feed, — said the young man John, — it's 
the old woman's looks when a fellah lays it in too 
strong. The feed's well enough. After geese have 
got tough, 'n' turkeys have got strong, 'n' lamb's got 
old, 'n' veal 's pretty nigh beef, 'n' sparragrass 's 
growin' tall 'n' slim 'n' scattery about the head, 'n' 
green peas are gettin' so big 'n' hard they 'd be danger- 
ous if you fired 'em out of a revolver, we get hold of 
all them delicacies of the season. But it's too much 
like feedin' on live folks and devourin' widdah's sub- 
stance, to lay yourself out in the eatin' way, when a 
fellah 's as hungry as the chap that said a turkey was 
too much for one 'n' not enough for two. I can't help 
lookin' at the old woman. Corned-beef-days she's 
tolerable calm. Roastin'-days she worries some, 'n' 
keeps a sharp eye on the chap that carves. But when 
there's anything in the poultry line, it seems to hurt 
her feelin's so to see the knife goin' into the breast 
and joints comin' to pieces, that there's no comfort in 
eatin'. When I cut up an old fowl and help the 
boarders, I always feel as if I ought to say. Won't you 
have a slice of widdah ? — instead of chicken. 

The young man John fell into a train of reflections 
which ended in his producing a Bologna sausage, a 
plate of " crackers," as we Boston folks call certain 
biscuits, and the bottle of whiskey described as being 
A I. 

Under the influence of the crackers and sausage, he 
grew cordial and communicative. 

It was time, I thought, to sound him as to those of 
our boarders who had excited my curiosity. 

What do you think of our young Iris? — I began. 

Fust-rate little filly; — he said. — Pootiest and nic- 
est little chap 1 've seen since the schoolma'am left. 



172 THE PROFESSOR 

Schoolma'am was a brown-haired one, — eyes coffee- 
color. This one has got wine-colored eyes, — 'n' 
that 's the reason they turn a fellah's head, I suppose. 

This is a splendid blonde, — I said, — the other 
was a brunette. Which style do you like best.? 

Which do I like best, boiled mutton or roast mut- 
ton? — said the young man John. Like 'em both, — 
it a'n't the color of 'em makes the goodness. I 've 
been kind of lonely since schoolma'am went away. 
Used to like to look at her. I never said anything 
particular to her, that I remember, but — 

I don't know whether it was the cracker and sau- 
sage, or that the young fellow's feet were treading on 
the hot ashes of some longing that had not had time 
to cool, but his eye glistened as he stopped. 

I suppose she would n't have looked at a fellah like 
me, — he said, — but I come pretty near tryin'. If 
she had said. Yes, though, I shouldn't have known 
what to have done with her. Can't marry a woman 
now-a-days jtill you 're so deaf you have to cock your 
head like a parrot to hear what she says, and so long- 
sighted you can't see what she looks like nearer than 
arm's-length. 

Here is another chance for you, — I said. — What 
do you want nicer than such a young lady as Iris? 

It's no use, — he ans-wered. — I look at them girls 
and feel as the fellah did when he missed catchin' the 
trout. — 'To'od 'a' cost more butter to cook him 'n' 
he's worth, — says the 'fellah. — Takes a whole piece 
o' goods to cover a girl up now-a-days. I 'd as lief 
undertake to keep a span of elephants, — and take an 
ostrich to board too, — as to marry one of 'em. 
What's the use? Clerks and counter-jumpers a'n't 
anything. Sparragrass and green peas a'n't for them, 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 73 

— not while they're young and tender. Hossback- 
ridin' a'n't for them, — except once a year, — on Fast- 
day. And marry in' a'n't for them. Sometimes a 
fellah feels lonely, and would like to have a nice young 
woman, to tell her how lonely he feels. And some- 
times a fellah, — here the young man John looked very 
confidential, and, perhaps, as if a little ashamed of his 
weakness, — sometimes a fellah would like to have 
one o' them small young ones to trot on his knee and 
push about in a little wagon, — a kind of a little 
Johnny, you know; — it's odd enough, but it seems 
to me, nobody can afford them little articles, except 
the folks that are so rich they can buy everything, 
and the folks that are so poor they don't want any- 
thing. It makes nice boys of us young fellahs, no 
doubt! And it's pleasant to see fine young girls 
sittin', like shopkeepers behind their goods, waitin', 
and waitin', and waitin', 'n' no customers, — and the 
men lingerin' round and lookin' at the goods, like 
folks that want to be customers, but have n 't got the 
money! 

Do you think the deformed gentleman means to 
make love to Iris ? — I said. 

What ! Little Boston ask that girl to marry him ! 
Well, now, that's comin' of it a little too strong. 
Yes, I guess she will marry him and carry him round 
in a basket, like a lame bantam! Look here! — he 
said, mysteriously ; — one of the boarders swears 
there 's a woman comes to see him, and that he has 
heard her singin' and screechin'. I should like to 
know what he's about in that den of his. He lays 
low 'n' keeps dark, — and, I tell you, there 's a good 
many of the boarders would like to get into his cham- 
ber, but he don't seem to want 'em. Biddy could tell 



174 THE PROFESSOR 

somethin' about what she 's seen when she 's been to 
put his room to rights. She 's a Paddy 'n' a fool, but 
she knows enough to keep her tongue still. All I 
know is, I saw her crossin^ herself one day when she 
came out of that room. She looked pale enough, 'n' 
I heard her mutterin' somethin' or other about the 
Blessed Virgin. If it had nH been for the double 
doors to that chamber of his, I 'd have had a squint 
inside before this ; but, somehow or other, it never 
seems to happen that they 're both open at once. 

What do you think he employs himself about? — 
said I. 

The young man John winked. 

I waited patiently for the thought, of which this 
wink was the blossom, to come to fruit in words. 

I don't believe in witches, — said the young man 
John. 

Nor I. 

We were both silent for a few minutes. 

— Did you ever see the young girl's drawing-books, 
— I said, presently. 

All but one, — he answered ; — she keeps a lock on 
that, and won't show it. Ma'am Allen, (the young 
rogue sticks to that name, in speaking of the gentleman 
with the diajHOiid.) M-a'am Allen tried to peek into 
it one day when she left it on the sideboard. " If you 
please," says she, — 'n' took it from him, 'n' gave him 
a look that made him curl up like a caterpillar on a 
hot shovel. I only wished he had n't, and had jest 
given her a little sass, for I 've been takin' boxin'- 
lessons, 'n' I 've got a new way of counterin' I want to 
try on to somebpdy. 

— The end of all this was, that I came away from 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 75 

the young fellow's room, feeling that there were two 
principal things that I had to live for, for the next six 
weeks or six months, if it should take so long. These 
were, to get a sight of the young girl's drawing-book, 
which I suspected had her heart shut up in it, and to 
get a look into the Little Gentleman's room. 

I don't doubt you think it rather absurd that I should 
trouble myself about these matters. You tell me, with 
some show of reason, that all I shall find in the young 
girl's book will be some outlines of angels with im- 
mense eyes, traceries of flowers, rural sketches, and 
caricatures, among which I shall probably have the 
pleasure of seeing my own features figuring. Very 
likely. But I '11 tell you what /think I shall find. If 
this child has idealized the strange little bit of hu- 
manity over which she seems to have spread her wings 
like a brooding dove, — if, in one of those wild vaga- 
ries that passionate natures are so liable to, she has 
fairly sprung upon him with her clasping nature, as 
the sea-flowers fold about the first stray shell-fish that 
brushes their outspread tentacles, depend upon it, I 
shall find the marks of it in this drawing-book of hers, 

— if I can ever get a look at it, — fairly, of course, for 
I would not play tricks to satisfy my curiosity. 

Then, if I can get into this Little Gentleman's room 
under any fair pretext, I shall, no doubt, satisfy my- 
self in five minutes that he is just like other people, 
and that there is no particular mystery about him. 

The night after my visit to the young man John, 
I made all these and many more reflections. It was 
about two o'clock in the morning, — bright starlight, 

— so light that I could make out the time on my 
alarm-clock, — when I woke up trembling and very 
moist. It was the heavy, dragging sound, as I had 



i;t6 the professor 

often heard it before, that waked me. Presently a 
window was softly closed. I had just begun to get 
over the agitation with which we always awake from 
nightmare dreams, when I heard the sound which 
seemed to me as of a woman's voice, — the clearest, 
purest soprano which one could well conceive of. It 
was not loud, and I could not distinguish a word, if 
it was a woman's voice ; but there were recurring 
phrases of sound and snatches of rhythm that reached 
me, which suggested the idea of complaint, and some- 
times, I thought, of passionate grief and despair. It 
died away at last, — and then I heard the opening of 
a door, followed by a low, monotonous sound, as of 
one talking, — and then the closing of a door, — and 
presently the light on the opposite wall disappea^d 
and all was still for the night. 

By George ! this gets interesting, — I said, as I got 
out of bed for a change of night-clothes. 

I had this in my pocket the other day, but thought 
I would n't read it at our celebration. So I read it to 
the boarders instead, and print it to finish off this 
record with. 



ROBINSON OF LEYDEN. 

He sleeps not here ; in hope and prayer 
His wandering flock had gone before, 

But he, the shepherd, might not share 
Their sorrows on the wintry shore. 

Before the Speedwell's anchor swung, 
Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread. 

While round his feet the Pilgrims clung, 
The pastor spake, and thus he said : — 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 77 

" Men, brethren, sisters, children dear! 

God calls you hence from over sea; 
Y« may not build by Haerlem Meer, 

Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee. 

" Ye go to bear the saving word 
To tribes unnamed and shores untrod: 

Herd well the lessons ye have heard 
From those old teachers taught of God. 

" Yet think not unto them was lent 

All light for all the coming days, 
And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent 

In making straight the ancient ways. 

" The living fountain overflows 

For every flock, for every lamb, 
Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose 

With Luther's dike or Calvin's dam." 

He spake; with lingering, long embrace, 
With tears of love and partings fond, 

They floated down the creeping Maas, x 

Along the isle of Ysselmond. 

They passed the frowning towers of Briel, 
The " Hook of Holland's " shelf of sand, 

And grated soon with lifting keel 
The sullen shores of Fatherland. 

No home for these ! — too well they knew 
The mitred king behind the throne; — 

The sails were set, the pennons flew, 
And westward ho ! for worlds unknown. 

— And these were they who gave us birth, 

The Pilgrims of the sunset wave, 
Who won for us this virgin earth, 

And freedom with the soil they gave. 



lyS THE PROFESSOR 

The pastor slumbers by the Rhine, — 
In alien earth the exiles lie, — 

Their nameless graves our holiest shrine, 
His words our noblest battle-cry ! 

Still cry them, and the world shall hear, 
Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea! 

Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer, 
Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee ! 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 79 



VIII. 

There has been a sort of stillness in the atmos- 
phere of our boarding-house since my last record, as 
if something or other were going on. There is no 
particular change that I can think of in the aspect of 
things ; yet I have a feeling as if some game of life 
were quietly playing and strange forces were at work, 
underneath this smooth surface of every-day boarding- 
house life, which would show themselves some fine 
morning or other in events, if not in catastrophes. I 
have been watchful, as I said I should be, but have 
little to tell as yet. You may laugh at me, and very 
likely think me foolishly fanciful to trouble myself 
about what is going on in a middling-class household 
like ours. Do as you like. But here is that terrible 
fact to begin with, — a beautiful young girl, with the 
blood and the nerve-fibre that belong to Nature's 
women, turned loose among live men. 

— Terrible fact ? 

Very terrible. Nothing more so. Do you forget 
the angels who lost heaven for the daughters of men? 
Do you forget Helen, and the fair women who made 
mischief and set nations by the ears before Helen was 
born? If jealousies that gnaw men's hearts out of 
their bodies, — if pangs that waste men to shadows 
and drive them into raving madness or moping melan- 
choly, — if assassination and suicide are dreadful pos- 
sibilities, then there is always something frightful about 



l80 THE PROFESSOR 

a lovely young woman. — I love to look at this " Rain- 
bow," as her father used sometimes to call her, of 
ours. Handsome creature that she is in forms and 
colors, — the very picture, as it seems to me, of that 
" golden blonde " my friend whose book you read last 
year fell in love with when he was a boy, (as you 
remember, no doubt,) — handsome as she is, fit for a 
sea-king^s bride, it is not her beauty alone that holds 
my eyes upon her. Let me tell you one of my fancies, 
and then you will understand the strange sort of fas- 
cination she has for me. 

It is in the hearts of many mefl and women — let 
me add children — that there is a Great Secret waiting 
for them, — a secret of which they get hints now and 
then, perhaps oftener in early than in later years. 
These hints come sometimes in dreams, sometimes in 
sudden startling flashes, — second wakings^ as it were, 
— a waking out of the waking state, which last is very 
apt to be a half-sleep. I have many times stopped 
short and held my breath, and felt the blood leaving 
my cheeks, in one of these sudden clairvoyant flashes. 
Of course I cannot tell what kind of a secret this is ; 
but I think of it as a disclosure of certain relations of 
our personal being to time and space, to other intelli- 
gences, to the procession of events, and to their First 
Great Cause. This secret seems to be broken up, as 
it were, into fragments, so that we find here a word 
and there a syllable, and then again only a letter of it ; 
but it never is written out for most of us as a complete 
sentence, in this life. I do not think it could be ; for 
I am disposed to consider our beliefs about such a 
possible disclosure rather as a kind of premonition of 
an enlargement of our faculties in some future state 
than as an expectation to be fulfilled for most of us in 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. l8l 

this life. Persons, however, have fallen into trances, 
— as did the Reverend William Tennant, among many 
others, — and learned some things which they could 
not tell in our human words. 

Now among the visible objects which hint to us 
fragments of this infinite secret for which our souls are 
waiting, the faces of women are those that carry the 
most legible hieroglyphics of the great mystery. There 
are women's faces, some real, some ideal, which contain 
something in them that becomes a positive element in 
our creed, so direct and palpable a revelation is it of 
the infinite purity and love. I remember two faces of 
women with wings, such as they call angels, of Fra 
Angelico, — and I just now came across a print of 
RaphaePs Santa Apollina, with something of the same 
quality, — which I was sure had their prototypes in the 
world above ours. No wonder the Catholics pay their 
vows to the Queen of Heaven ! The unpoetical side of 
Protestantism is, that it has no women to be worshipped. 

But mind you, it is not every beautiful face that hints 
the Great Secret to us, nor is it only in beautiful faces 
that we find traces of it. Sometimes it looks out from 
a sweet sad eye, the only beauty of a plain counte- 
nance ; sometimes there is so much meaning in the lips 
of a woman, not otherwise fascinating, that we know 
they have a message for us, and wait almost with awe 
to hear their accents. But this young girl has at once 
the beauty of feature and the unspoken mystery of ex- 
pression. Can she tell me anything ? Is her Hfe a com- 
plement of mine, with the missing element in it which 
I have been groping after through so many friendships 
that I have tired of, and through — Hush ! Is the 
door fast ? Talking loud is a bad trick in these curious 
boarding-houses . 



1 82 THE PROFESSOR 

You must have sometimes noted this fact that I am 
going to remind you of and to use for a special illustra- 
tion. Riding along over a rocky road, suddenly the 
slow monotonous grinding of the crushing gravel 
changes to a deep heavy rumble. There is a great 
hollow under your feet, — a huge unsunned cavern. 
Deep, deep beneath you, in the core of the living rock, 
it arches its awful vault, and far away it stretches its 
winding galleries, their roofs dripping into streams 
where fishes have been swimming and spawning in the 
dark until their scales are white as milk and their eyes 
have withered out, obsolete and useless. 

So it is in life. We jog quietly along, meeting the 
same faces, grinding over the same thoughts, — the 
gravel of the souPs highway, — now and then jarred 
against an obstacle we cannot crush, but must ride 
over or round as we best may, sometimes bringing 
short up against a disappointment, but still working 
along with the creaking and rattling and grating and 
jerking that belong to the journey of life, even in the 
smoothest-rolling vehicle. Suddenly we hear the deep 
under-ground reverberation that reveals the unsus- 
pected depth of some abyss of thought or passion be- 
neath us. — 

I wish the girl would go. I don't like to look at 
her so much, and yet I cannot help it. Always that 
same expression of something that I ought to know, — 
something that she was made to tell and I to hear, — 
lying there ready to fall off from her lips, ready to leap 
out of her eyes and make a saint of me, or a devil or a 
lunatic, or perhaps a prophet to tell the truth and be 
hated of men, or a poet whose words shall flash upon 
the dry stubble-field of worn-out thoughts and burn 
over an age of lies in an hour of passion. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 83 

It suddenly occurs to me that I may have put you 
on the wrong track. The Great Secret that I refer 
to has nothing to do with the Three Words. Set 
your mind at ease about that, — there are reasons I 
could give you which settle all that matter. I don't 
wonder, however, that you confounded the Great 
Secret with the Three Words. 

I LOVE YOU is all the secret that many, nay, most 
women have to tell. When that is said, they are 
like China-crackers on the morning of the fifth of 
July. And just as that little patriotic implement is 
made with a slender train which leads to the magazine 
in its interior, so a sharp eye can almost always see 
the train leading from a young girl's eye or lip to the 
" I love you " in her heart. But the Three Words 
are not the Great Secret I mean. No, women's faces 
are only one of the tablets on which that is written 
in its partial, fragmentary symbols. It lies deeper 
than Love, though very probably Love is a part of it. 
Some, I think, — Wordsworth might be one of them, 
— spell out a portion of it from certain beautiful 
natural objects, landscapes, flowers, and others, I 
can mention several poems of his that have shadowy 
hints which seem to me to come near the region 
where I think it lies. I have known two persons who 
pursued it with the passion of the old alchemists, — 
all wrong evidently, but infatuated, and never giving 
up the daily search for it until they got tremulous 
and feeble, and their dreams changed to visions of 
things that ran and crawled about their floor and 
ceilings, and so they died. The vulgar called them 
drunkards. 

I told you that I would let you know the mystery 
of the effect this young girl's face produces on me. 



1 84 THE PROFESSOR 

It is akin to those influences a friend of mine has 
described, you may remember, as coming from cer- 
tain voices. I cannot translate it into words, — only 
into feelings ; and these I have attempted to shadow 
by showing that her face hinted that revelation of 
something we are close to knowing, which all imagi- 
native persons are looking for either in this world 
or on the very threshold of the next. 

You shake your head at the vagueness and fanciful 
incomprehensibleness of my description of the ex- 
pression in a young girPs face. You forget what a 
miserable surface-matter this language is in which we 
try to reproduce our interior state of being. Articula- 
tion is a shallow trick. From the light Poh! which 
we toss off" from our lips as we fling a nameless 
scribbler's impertinences into our waste-baskets, to 
the gravest utterance which comes from our throats 
in our moments of deepest need, is only a space of 
some three or four inches. Words, which are a 
set of clickings, hissings, lispings, and so on, mean 
very little, compared to tones and expression of the 
features. I give it up ; I thought I could shadow 
forth in some feeble way, by their aid, the effect this 
young girPs face produces on my imagination ; but it 
is of no use. No doubt your head aches, trying to 
make something of my description. If there is here 
and there one that can make anything intelligible 
out of my talk about the Great Secret, and who has 
spelt out a syllable or two of it on some woman's 
face, dead or living, that is all I can expect. One 
should see the person with whom he converses about 
such matters. There are dreamy-eyed people to 
whom I should say all these things with a certainty 
of being understood ; — 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 85 

That moment that his face I see, 
I know the man that must hear me : 
To him my tale I teach. 

— I am afraid some of them have not got a spare 
quarter of a dollar for this August number, so that 
they will never see it. 

— Let us start again, just as if we had not made 
this ambitious attempt, which may go for nothing, 
and you can have your money refunded, if you will 
make the change. 

This young girl, about whom I have talked so un- 
intelligibly, is the unconscious centre of attraction to 
the whole solar system of our breakfast-table. The 
Little Gentleman leans towards her, and she again 
seems to be swayed as by some invisible gentle force 
towards him. That slight inclination of two persons 
with a strong affinity towards each other, throwing 
them a little out of plumb when they sit side by side, 
is a physical fact I have often noticed. Then there 
is a tendency in all the men's eyes to converge on 
her ; and I do firmly believe, that, if all their chairs 
were examined, they would be found a little obliquely 
placed, so as to favor the direction in which their 
occupants love to look. 

That bland, quiet old gentleman, of whom I have 
spoken as sitting opposite to me, is no exception to 
the rule. She brought down some mignonette one 
morning, which she had grown in her chamber. She 
gave a sprig to her little neighbor, and one to the 
landlady, and sent another by the hand of Bridget 
to this old gentleman. 

— Sarvant, Ma'am ! Much obleeged, — he said, 
and put it gallantly in his button-hole. — After break- 
fast he must see some of her drawings. Very fine 



1 86 THE PROFESSOR 

performances, — very fine ! — truly elegant produc- 
tions, — truly elegant ! — Had seen Miss Linley^s 
needle-work in London, in the year (eighteen hundred 
and little or nothing, I think he said,) — patronized 
by the nobility and gentry, and Her Majesty, — ele- 
gant, truly elegant productions, very fine performances ; 
these drawings reminded him of them; — wonderful 
resemblance to Nature ; an extraordinary art, painting ; 
Mr. Copley made some very fine pictures that he 
remembered seeing when he was a boy. Used to re- 
member some lines about a portrait written by Mr. 
Cowper, beginning, — 

" Oh that those lips had language ! Life has pass'd 
With me but roughly since I heard thee last." 

And with this the old gentleman fell to thinking 
about a dead mother of his that he remembered ever 
so much younger than he now was, and looking, not 
as his mother, but as his daughter should look. The 
dead young mother was looking at the old man, her 
child, as she used to look at him so many, many 
years ago. He stood still as if in a waking dream, 
his eyes fixed on the drawings till their outlines grew 
indistinct and they ran into each other, and a pale, 
sweet face shaped itself out of the glimmering light 
through which he saw them. — What is there quite 
so profoundly human as an old man's memory of a 
mother who died in his earlier years ? Mother she 
remains till manhood, and by-and-by she grows to 
be as a sister ; and at last, when, wrinkled and bowed 
and broken, he looks back upon her in her fair youth, 
he sees in the sweet image he caresses, not his parent, 
but, as it were, his child. 

If I had not seen all this in the old gentleman's 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 8/ 

face, the words with which he broke his silence would 
have betrayed his train of thought. 

— If they had only taken pictures then as they do 
now! — he said. — All gone ! all gone! nothing but 
her face as she leaned on the arms of her great chair ; 
and I would give a hundred pound for the poorest 
little picture of her, such as you can buy for a shilling 
of anybody that you don't want to see. — The old 
gentleman put his hand to his forehead so as to 
shade his eyes. I saw he was looking at the dim 
photograph of memory, and turned from him to Iris. 
How many drawing-books have you filled, — I said, 
— since you began to take lessons ? — This was the 
first, — she answered, — since she was here; and it 
was not full, but there were many separate sheets of 
large size she had covered with drawings. 

I turned over the leaves of the book before us. 
Academic studies, principally of the human figure. 
Heads of sibyls, prophets, and so forth. Limbs from 
statues. Hands and feet from Nature. What a su- 
perb drawing of an arm ! I donH remember it among 
the figures from Michel Angelo, which seem to have 
been her patterns mainly. From Nature, I think, or 
after a cast from Nature. — Oh 1 — 

— Your smaller studies are in this, I suppose, — I 
said, taking up the drawing-book with a lock on it. 
_ Yes, — she said. — I should like to see her style 
of working on a small scale. — There was nothing in 
it worth showing, — she said ; and presently I saw 
her try the lock, which proved to be fast. We are 
all caricatured in it, I haven't the least doubt. I 
think, though, I could tell by her way of dealing with 
us what her fancies were about us boarders. Some 
of them act as if they were bewitched with her, but 



1 88 THE PROFESSOR 

she does not seem to notice it much. Her thoughts 
seem to be on her Httle neighbor more than on any- 
body else. The young fellow John appears to stand 
second in her good graces. I think he has once or 
twice sent her what the landlady's daughter calls bo- 
kays of flowers, — somebody has, at any rate. — I saw 
a book she had, which must have come from the 
divinity-student. It had a dreary title-page, which 
she had enlivened with a fancy portrait of the author, 
— a face from memory, apparently, — one of those 
faces that small children loathe without knowing why, 
and which give them that inward disgust for heaven 
so many of the little wretches betray, when they hear 
that these are " good men," and that heaven is full of 
such. — The gentleman with the diamond — the Koh- 
i-noor, so called by us — was not encouraged, I think, 
by the reception of his packet of perfumed soap. He 
pulls his purple moustache and looks appreciatingly 
at Iris, who never sees him, as it should seem. The 
young Marylander, who I thought would have been 
in love with her before this time, sometimes looks 
from his corner across the long diagonal of the table, 
as much as to say, I wish you were up here by me, 
or I were down there by you, — which would, per- 
haps, be a more natural arrangement than the pres- 
ent one. But nothing comes of all this, — and nothing 
has come of my sagacious idea of finding out the girPs 
fancies by looking into her locked drawing-book. 

Not to give up all the questions I was determined 
to solve, I made an attempt also to work into the 
Little Gentleman's chamber. For this purpose, I 
kept him in conversation, one morning, until he was 
just ready to go up-stairs, and then, as if to continue 
the talk, followed him as he toiled back to his room. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 89 

He rested on the landing and faced round toward me. 
There was something in his eye which said, Stop there ! 
So we finished our conversation on the landing. The 
next day, I mustered assurance enough to knock at 
his door, having a pretext ready. — No answer. — 
Knock again. A door, as if of a cabinet, was shut 
softly and locked, and presently I heard the peculiar 
dead beat of his thick-soled, misshapen boots. The 
bolts and the lock of the inner door were unfastened, 
— with unnecessary noise, I thought, — and he came 
into the passage. He pulled the inner door after him 
and opened the outer one at which I stood. He had 
on a flowered silk dressing-gown, such as " Mr. Cop- 
ley " used to paint his old-fashioned merchant-princes 
in ; and a quaint-looking key in his hand. Our con- 
versation was short, but long enough to convince me 
that the Little Gentleman did not want my company 
in his chamber, and did not mean to have it. 

I have been making a great fuss about what is no 
mystery at all, — a schoolgirl's secrets and a whimsi- 
cal man's habits. I mean to give up such nonsense 
and mind my own business. — Hark! What the 
dense is that odd noise in his chamber? 

— I think I am a little superstitious. There were 
two things, when I was a boy, that diabolized my 
imagination, — I mean, that gave me a distinct appre- 
hension of a formidable bodily shape which prowled 
round the neighborhood where I was born and bred. 
The first was a series of marks called the "Devil's 
footsteps." These were patches of sand in the 
pastures, where no grass grew, where even the low- 
bush blackberry, the "dewberry," as our Southern 
neighbors call it, in prettier and more Shakspearian 
language, did not spread its clinging creepers, — 



1 90 



THE PROFESSOR 



where even the pale, dry, sadly-sweet " everlasting " 
could not grow, but all was bare and blasted. The 
second was a mark in one of the public buildings 
near my home, — the college dormitory named after a 
Colonial Governor. I do not think many persons are 
aware of the existence of this mark, — little having 
been said about the story in print, as it was considered 
very desirable, for the sake of the Institution, to hush 
it up. In the northwest corner, and on the level of 
the third or fourth story, there are signs of a breach 
in the walls, mended pretty well, but not to be mis- 
taken. A considerable portion of that corner must 
have been carried away, from within outward. It was 
an unpleasant affair ; and I do not care to repeat the 
particulars ; but some young men had been using 
sacred things in a profane and unlawful way, when 
the occurrence, which was variously explained, took 
place. The story of the Appearance in the chamber 
was, I suppose, invented afterwards ; but of the injury 
to the building there could be no question ; and the 
zig-zag line, where the mortar is a little thicker than 
before, is still distincdy visible. The queer burnt 
spots, called the " Devil's footsteps," had never at- 
tracted attention before this time, though there is no 
evidence that they had not existed previously, except 
that of the late Miss M., a " Goody," so called, or 
sweeper, who was positive on the subject, but had a 
strange horror of referring to an affair of which she 
was thought to know something. — I tell you it was 
not so pleasant for a little boy of impressible nature 
to go up to bed in an old gambrel-roofed house, 
with untenanted, locked upper-chambers, and a most 
ghostly garret, — with the " DeviPs footsteps " in the 
fields behind the house, and in front of it the patched 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 191 

dormitory where the unexplained occurrence had taken 
place which startled those godless youths at their 
mock devotions, so that one of them was epileptic 
from that day forward, and another, after a dreadful 
season of mental conflict, took holy orders and be- 
came renowned for his ascetic sanctity. 

There were other circumstances that kept up the 
impression produced by these two singular facts I have 
just mentioned. There was a dark storeroom, on 
looking through the key-hole of which I could dimly 
see a heap of chairs and tables, and other four-footed 
things, which seemed to me to have rushed in there, 
frightened, and in their fright to have huddled to- 
gether and climbed up on each other's backs, — as the 
people did in that awful crush where so many were 
killed, at the execution of Holloway and Haggerty. 
Then the Lady's portrait, up-stairs, with the sword- 
thrusts through it, — marks of the British officers' 
rapiers, — and the tall mirror in which they used to 
look at their red coats, — confound them for smashing 
its mate! — and the deep, cunningly wrought arm- 
chair in which Lord Percy used to sit while his hair 
was dressing; — he was a gentleman, and always had 
it covered with a large peignoir, to save the silk cov- 
ering my grandmother embroidered. Then the little 
room down-stairs, from which went the orders to throw 
up a bank of earth on the hill yonder, where you may 
now observe a granite obelisk, — " the study," in my 
father's time, but in those days the council-chamber 
of armed men, — sometimes filled with soldiers; — 
come with me, and I will show you the '' dents " left 
by the butts of their muskets all over the floor. — 
With all these suggestive objects round me, aided by 
the wild stories those awful country-boys that came to 



192 THE PROFESSOR 

live in our service brought with them, — of contracts 
written in blood and left out over night, not to be 
found the next morning, (removed by the Evil One, 
who takes his nightly round among our dwellings, and 
filed away for future use,) — of dreams coming true, 
— of death-signs, — of apparitions, — no wonder that 
my imagination got excited, and I was liable to super- 
stitious fancies. 

Jeremy Bentham's logic, by which he proved that 
he could n't possibly see a ghost, is all very well — in 
the day-time. All the reason in the world will never 
get those impressions of childhood, created by just 
such circumstances as I have been telling, out of a 
man's head. That is the only excuse I have to give 
for the nervous kind of curiosity with which I watched 
my little neighbor, and the obstinacy with which I lie 
awake whenever I hear anything going on in his 
chamber after midnight. 

But whatever further observations I may have made 
must be deferred for the present. You will see in 
what way it happened that my thoughts were turned 
from spiritual matters to bodily ones, and how I got 
my fancy full of material images, — faces, heads, figures, 
muscles, and so forth, — in such a way that I should 
have no chance in this number to gratify any curiosity 
you may feel, if I had the means of so doing. 

Indeed, I have come pretty near omitting my 
periodical record this time. It was all the work of 
a friend of mine, who would have it that I should sit 
to him for my portrait. "When a soul draws a body 
in the great lottery of life, where every one is sure of 
a prize, such as it is, the said soul inspects the said 
body with the same curious interest with which one 
who has ventured into a " gift enterprise " examines 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 93 

the " massive silver pencil-case " with the copper)' 
smell and impressible tube, or the " splendid gold 
ring " with the questionable specific gravity, which it 
has been his fortune to obtain in addition to his pur- 
chase. 

The soul, having studied the article of which it finds 
itself proprietor, thinks, after a time, it knows it pretty 
well. But there is this difference between its view 
and that of a person looking at us ; — we look from 
within, and see nothing but the mould formed by the 
elements in which we are incased ; other observers 
look from without, and see us as living statues. To 
be sure, by the aid of mirrors, we get a few glimpses 
of our outside aspect ; but this occasional impression 
is always modified by that look of the soul from with- 
in outward which none but ourselves can take. A 
portrait is apt, therefore, to be a surprise to us. The 
artist looks' only from without. He sees us, too, with 
a hundred aspects on our faces we are never likely to 
see. No genuine expression can be studied by the 
subject of it in the looking-glass. 

More than this ; he sees us in a way in which many 
of our friends or acquaintances never see us. With- 
out wearing any mask we are conscious of, we have a 
special face for each friend. For, in the first place, 
each puts a special reflection of himself upon us, on 
the principle of assimilation you found referred to in 
my last record, if you happened to read that document. 
And secondly, each of our friends is capable of seeing 
just so far, and no farther, into our face, and each 
sees in it the particular thing that he looks for. Now 
the artist, if he is truly an artist, does not take any 
one of these special views. Suppose he should copy 
you as you appear to the man who wants your name to 



194 ^^^ PROFESSOR 

a subscription-list, you could hardly expect a friend 
who entertains you to recognize the likeness to the 
smiling face which sheds its radiance at his board. 
Even within your own family, I am afraid there is a 
face which the rich uncle knows, that is not so famil- 
iar to the poor relation. The artist must take one 
or the other, or something compounded of the two, or 
something different from either. What the daguerre- 
otype and photograph do is to give the features and 
one particular look, the very look which kills all ex- 
pression, that of self-consciousness. The artist throws 
you off your guard, watches you in movement and in 
repose, puts your face through its exercises, observes 
its transitions, and so gets the whole range of its ex- 
pression. Out of all this he forms an ideal portrait, 
which is not a copy of your exact look at any one 
time or to any particular person. Such a portrait 
cannot be to everybody what the ungloved call " as 
nat'ral as life." Every good picture, therefore, must be 
considered wanting in resemblance by many persons. 

There is one strange revelation which comes out, as 
the artist shapes your features from his outline. It is 
that you resemble so many relatives to whom you 
yourself never had noticed any particular likeness in 
your countenance. 

He is at work at me now, when I catch some of 
these resemblances, thus : — 

There ! that is just the look my father used to have 
sometimes ; I never thought I had a sign of it. The 
mother's eyebrow and grayish-blue eye, those I knew 
I had. But there is a something which recalls a smile 
that faded away from my sister's lips — how many 
years ago! I thought it so pleasant in her, that I love 
myself better for having a trace of it. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 195 

Are we not young? Are we not fresh and bloom- 
ing? Wait a bit. The artist takes a mean little 
brush and draws three fine lines, diverging outwards 
from the eye over the temple. Five years. — The 
artist draws one tolerably distinct and two faint lines, 
perpendicularly between the eyebrows. Ten years. — 
The artist breaks up the contours round the mouth, 
so that they look a little as a hat does that has been 
sat upon and recovered itself, ready, as one would say, 
to crumple up again in the same creases, on smiling 
or other change of feature. — Hold on! Stop that ! 
Give a young fellow a chance ! Are we not whole 
years short of that interesting period of life when Mr. 
Balzac says that a man, etc., etc., etc.? 

There now! That is ourself, as we look after finish- 
ing an article, getting a three-mile pull with the ten- 
foot sculls, redressing the wrongs of the toilet, and 
standing with the light of hope in our eye and the 
reflection of a red curtain on our cheek. Is he not a 
Poet that painted us? 

" Blest be the art that can immortalize ! " 

COWPER. 

— Young folks look on a face as a unit ; children 
who go to school with any given little John Smith see 
m his name a distinctive appellation, and in his fea- 
tures as special and definite an expression of his sole 
individuality as if he were the first created of his 
race. As soon as we are old enough to get the range 
of three or four generations well in hand, and to take 
in large family histories, we never see an individual 
in a face of any stock we know, but a mosaic copy of 
a pattern, with fragmentary tints from this and that 
ancestor. The analysis of a face into its ancestral 



196 THE PROFESSOR 

elements requires that it should be examined in the 
very earliest infancy, before it has lost that ancient 
and solemn look it brings with it out of the past eter- 
nity ; and again in that brief space when Life, the 
mighty sculptor, has done his work, and Death, his 
silent servant, lifts the veil and lets us look at the 
marble lines he has wrought so faithfully ; and lastly, 
while a painter who can seize all the traits of a coun- 
tenance is building it up, feature after feature, from 
the slight outline to the finished portrait. 

— I am satisfied, that, as we grow older, we learn to 
look upon our bodies more and more as a temporary 
possession, and less and less as identified with our- 
selves. In early years, while the child "feels its life 
in every limb," it lives in the body and for the body 
to a very great extent. It ought to be so. There 
have been many very interesting children who have 
shown a wonderful indifference to the things of earth 
and an extraordinary development of the spiritual 
nature. There is a perfect literature of their biogra- 
phies, all alike in their essentials ; the same " disincli- 
nation to the usual amusements of childhood " ; the 
same remarkable sensibility ; the same docility ; the 
same conscientiousness ; in short, an almost uniform 
character, marked by beautiful traits, which we look 
at with a painful admiration. It will be found that 
most of these children are the subjects of some con- 
stitutional unfitness for living, the most frequent of 
which I need not mention. They are like the beauti- 
ful, blushing, half-grown fruit that falls before its time 
because its core is gnawed out. They have their 
meaning, — they do not live in vain, — but they are 
windfalls. I am convinced that many healthy chil- 
dren are injured morally by being forced to read too 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 97 

much about these little meek sufferers and their spir- 
itual exercises. Here is a boy that loves to run, 
swim, kick football, turn somersets, make faces, whit- 
tle, fish, tear his clothes, coast, skate, fire crackers, 
blow squash " tooters," cut his name on fences, read 
about Robinson Crusoe and Sinbad the Sailor, eat 
the widest-angled sHces of pie and untold cakes and 
candies, crack nuts with his back teeth and bite out 
the better part of another boy's apple with his front 
ones, turn up coppers, "stick" knives, call names, 
throw stones, knock off hats, set mousetraps, chalk 
doorsteps, " cut behind " anything on wheels or run- 
ners, whistle through his teeth, "holler" f^ire ! on 
slight evidence, run after soldiers, patronize an engine- 
company, or, in his own words, " blow for tub No. 11," 
or whatever it may be; — isn't that a pretty nice sort 
of a boy, though he has not got anything the matter 
with him that takes the taste of this world out ? 
Now, when you put into such a hot-blooded, hard- 
fisted, round-cheeked little rogue's hand a sad-looking 
volume or pamphlet, with the portrait of a thin, white- 
faced child, whose life is really as much a training for 
death as the last month of a condemned criminal's 
existence, what does he find in common between his 
own overflowing and exulting sense of vitality and 
the experiences of the doomed offspring of invalid 
parents ? The time comes when we have learned 
to understand the music of sorrow, the beauty of re- 
signed suffering, the holy light that plays over the 
pillow of those who die before their time, in humble 
hope and trust. But it is not until he has worked his 
way through the period of honest hearty animal exist- 
ence, which every robust child should make the most 
ofj — not until he has learned the use of his various 



198 THE PROFESSOR 

faculties, which is his first duty — that a boy of cour- 
age and animal vigor is in a proper state to read these 
tearful records of premature decay. I have no doubt 
that disgust is implanted in the minds of many 
healthy children by early surfeits of pathological 
piety. I do verily believe that He who took children 
in His arms and blessed them loved the healthi- 
est and most playful of them just as well as those 
who were richest in the tuberculous virtues. I know 
what I am talking about, and there are more par- 
ents in this country who will be willing to listen to 
what I say than there are fools to pick a quarrel with 
me. In the sensibility and the sanctity which often 
accompany premature decay I see one of the most 
beautiful instances of the principle of compensation 
which marks the Divine benevolence. But to get the 
spiritual hygiene of robust natures out of the excep- 
tional regimen of invalids is just simply what we 
Professors call " bad practice " ; and I know by expe- 
rience that there are worthy people who not only try 
it on their own children, but actually force it on those 
of their neighbors. 

— Having been photographed, and stereographed, 
and chromatographed, or done in colors, it only 
remained to be phrenologized. A polite note from 
Messrs. Bumpus and Crane, requesting our attend- 
ance at their Physiological Emporium, was too 
tempting to be resisted. We repaired to that scien- 
tific Golgotha. 

Messrs. Bumpus and Crane are arranged on the 
plan of the man and the woman in the toy called a 
" weather-house," both on the same wooden arm sus- 
pended on a pivot, — so that when one comes to the 
door, the other retires backwards, and vice versa. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 1 99 

The more particular speciality of one is to lubricate 
your entrance and exit, — that of the other to polish 
you off phrenologically in the recesses of the estab- 
lishment. Suppose yourself in a room full of casts 
and pictures, before a counterfull of books with tak- 
ing titles. I wonder if the picture of the brain is 
there, "approved" by a noted Phrenologist, which 
was copied from my, the Professor's, folio plate in the 
work of Gall and Spurzheim. An extra convolution, 
No. 9, Desir7ictiveness, according to the list beneath, 
which was not to be seen in the plate, itself a copy 
of Nature, was very liberally supplied by the artist, to 
meet the wants of the catalogue of " organs." Pro- 
fessor Bumpus is seated in front of a row of women, 
— horncombers and gold-beaders, or somewhere 
about that range of life,— looking so credulous, that, 
if any Second-Advent Miller or Joe Smith should 
come along, he could string the whole lot of them on 
his cheapest lie, as a boy strings a dozen " shiners " 
on a stripped twig of willow. 

The Professor (meaning ourselves) is in a hurry, as 
usual ; let the horncombers wait, — he shall be bumped 
without inspecting the antechamber. 

Tape round the head, — 22 inches. (Come on, old 
23 inches, if you think you are the better man ! ) 

Feels thorax and arm, and nuzzles round among 
muscles as those horrid old women poke their fingers 
into the salt-meat on the provision-stalls at the 
Quincy Market. Vitality, No. 5 or 6, or something 
or other. Victuality, (organ at epigastrium,) some 
other number equally significant. 

Mild champooing of head now commences. Ex- 
traordinary revelations ! Cupidiphilous, 6 ! Hymeni- 
philous, 6 + ! Paediphilous, 5 ! Deipniphilous, 6 ! 



200 THE PROFESSOR 

Gelasmiphilous, 6 ! Musikiphilous, 5 ! Uraniphi- 
lous, 5 ! 'Glossiphilous, 8 ! ! and so on. Meant for 
a linguist. — Invaluable information. Will invest in 
grammars and dictionaries immediately. — I have 
nothing against the grand total of my phrenological 
endowments. 

I never set great store by my head, and did not 
think Messrs. Bumpus and Crane would give me so 
good a lot of organs as they did, especially consider- 
ing that I was a rt'm^-head on that occasion. Much 
obliged to them for their politeness. They have been 
useful in their way by calling attention to important 
physiological facts. (This concession is due to our 
immense bump of Candor.) 



A short Lecttire on Phrenology, read to the Boarders 
at our Breakfast-Table, 

I shall begin, my friends, with the definition of a 
Pseudo-science. A Pseudo-science consists oia noinen- 
clature, with a self-adjusting arrangement, by which 
all positive evidence, or such as favors its doctrines, 
is admitted, and all negative evidence, or such as tells 
against it, is excluded. It is invariably connected 
with some lucrative practical application. Its profes- 
sors and practitioners are usually shrewd people ; 
they are very serious with the public, but wink and 
laugh a good deal among themselves. The believing 
multitude consists of women of both sexes, feeble- 
minded inquirers, poetical optimists, people who 
always get cheated in buying horses, philanthropists 
who insist on hurrying up the millennium, and others 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 201 

of this class, with here and there a clergyman, less 
frequently a lawyer, very rarely a physician, and 
almost never a horse-jockey or a member of the detec- 
tive police. — I did not say that Phrenology was one 
of the Pseudo-sciences. 

A Pseudo-science does not necessarily consist 
wholly of lies. It may contain many truths, and even 
valuable ones. The rottenest bank starts with a little 
specie. It puts out a thousand promises to pay on 
the strength of a single dollar, but the dollar is very 
commonly a good one. The practitioners of the 
Pseudo-sciences know that common minds, after they 
have been baited with a real fact or two, will jump 
at the merest rag of a lie, or even at the bare hook. 
When we have one fact found us, we are very apt to 
supply the next out of our own imagination. (How 
many persons can read Judges xv. i6 correctly the 
first time ?) The Pseudo-sciences take advantage 
of this. — I did not say that it was so with Phren- 
ology. 

I have rarely met a sensible man who would not 
allow that there was something in Phrenology. A 
broad, high forehead, it is commonly agreed, promises 
intellect ; one that is " villanous low " and has a huge 
hind-head back of it, is wont to mark an animal na- 
ture. I have as rarely met an unbiassed and sensible 
man who really believed in the bumps. It is observed, 
however, that persons with what the Phrenologists 
call " good heads " are more prone than others toward 
plenary belief in the doctrine. 

It is so hard to prove a negative, that, if a man should 
assert that the moon was in truth a green cheese, 
formed by the coagulable substance of the Milky Way, 
and challenge me to prove the contrary, I might be 



202 THE PROFESSOR 

puzzled. But if he offer to sell me a ton of this lunar 
cheese, I call on him to prove the truth of the caseous 
nature of our satellite, before I purchase. 

It is not necessary to prove the falsity of the phren- 
ological statement. It is only necessary to show 
that its truth is not proved, and cannot be, by the 
common course of argument. The walls of the head 
are double, with a great air-chamber between them, 
over the smallest and most closely crowded " organs.'' 
Can you tell how much money there is in a safe, which 
also has thick double walls, by kneading its knobs 
with your fingers? So when a man fumbles about 
my forehead, and talks about the organs of Individu- 
ality^ Size, etc., I trust him as much as I should if he 
felt of the outside of my strong-box and told me that 
there was a five-dollar or a ten-dollar-bill under this 
or that particular rivet. Perhaps there is; only he 
doesji't know (wy thing about it. But this is a point 
that I, the Professor, understand, my friends, or ought 
to, certainly, better than you do. The next argument 
you will all appreciate. 

I proceed, therefore, to explain the self-adjusting 
mechanism of Phrenology, which is very similar to 
that of the Pseudo-sciences. An example will show 
it most conveniently. 

A. is a notorious thief. Messrs. Bumpus and Crane 
examine him and find a good-sized organ of Acquisi- 
tiveness. Positive fact for Phrenology. Casts and 
drawings of A. are multiplied, and the bump does not 
lose in the act of copying. — I did not say it gained. 
— What do you look so for? (to the boarders). 

Presently B. turns up, a bigger thief than A. But 
B. has no bump at all over Acquisitiveness. Nega- 
tive fact; goes against Phrenology. — Not a bit of it. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 203 

Don't you see how small Conscientiousness is. That 'j- 
the reason B. stole. 

And then comes C, ten times as much a thief as 
either A. or B., — used to steal before he was weaned, 
and would pick one of his own pockets and put its 
contents in another, if he could find no other way of 
committing petty larceny. Unfortunately, C. has a 
hollow, instead of a bump, over Acquisitiveness. Ah, 
but just look and see what a bump of Alimentiveness! 
Did not C. buy nuts and gingerbread, when a boy, 
with the money he stole ? Of course you see why 
he is a thief, and how his example confirms our noble 
science. 

At last comes along a case which is apparently a 
settler, for there is a little brain with vast and varied 
powers, — a case like that of Byron, for instance. 
Then comes out the grand reserve-reason which 
covers everything and renders it simply impossible 
ever to corner a Phrenologist. " It is not the size 
alone, but the qjiaUty of an organ, which determines 
its degree of power." 

"Oh ! Oh ! I see. — The argument maybe briefly 
stated thus by the Phrenologist : " Heads I win, 
tails you lose." Well, that's convenient. 

It must be confessed that Phrenology has a certain 
resemblance to the Pseudo-sciences. I did not say it 
was a Pseudo-science. 

I have often met persons who have been altogether 
struck up and amazed at the accuracy with which some 
wandering Professor of Phrenology had read their 
characters written upon their skulls. Of course the 
Professor acquires his information solely through his 
cranial inspections and manipulations. — What are 
you laughing at.'' (to the boarders). — But let us just 



204 '^^^ PROFESSOR 

suppose^ for a moment, that a tolerably cunning fel- 
low, who did not know or care anything about Phre- 
nology, should open a shop and undertake to read off 
people's characters at fifty cents or a dollar apiece. 
Let us see how well he could get along without the 
" organs." 

I will suppose myself to set up such a shop. I 
would invest one hundred dollars, more or less, in 
casts of brains, skulls, charts, and other matters that 
would make the most show for the money. That 
would do to begin with. I would then advertise my- 
self as the celebrated Professor Brainey, or whatever 
name I might choose, and wait for my first customer. 
My first customer is a middle-aged man. I look at 
him, — ask him a question or two, so as to hear him 
talk. When I have got the hang of him, I ask him to 
sit down, and proceed to fumble his skull, dictating as 
follows : — 

SCALE FROM i TO lo. 

List of Faculties for Customer. Private Notes for my Pupil: 
Each to be accompanied with 
a wiftk. 

Amativeness, 7. Most men love the conflict- 

ing sex, and all men love to 
be told they do. 

Alimentiveness, 8. Don't you see that he has 

burst off his lowest waistcoat- 
button with feeding, — hey ? 

Acquisitiveness, 8. Of course. A middle-aged 

Yankee. 

Approbativeness.j-}-. Hat well brushed. Hair 

ditto. Mark the effect of that 
plus sign. 

Self-esteem, 6. His face shows that. 

Benevolence, 9. That "11 please liim. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 205 

Conscieittiousness, 8|. That fraction looks first- 

rate. 
Mirthfulness, 7. Has laughed twice since he 

came in. 
Ideality, 9. That sounds well. 

Form, Size, Weight, Color, 1 ^^ g^ Average everything 
Locality, Eventuality, etc., \ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ guessed. 
etc., ^ 

And so of the other faculties. 

Of course, you know, that is n't the way the Phre- 
nologists do. They go only by the bumps.— What 
do you keep laughing so for? (to the boarders). I 
only said that is the way / should practise ''Phre- 
nology " for a living. 

End of my Lecture. 

— The Reformers have good heads, generally. 
Their faces are commonly serene enough, and they 
are lambs in private intercourse, even though their 
voices may be like 

The wolfs long howl from Oonalaska's shore, 

when heard from the platform. Their greatest spirit- 
ual danger is from the perpetual flattery of abuse to 
which they are exposed. These lines are meant to 
caution them. 



SAINT ANTHONY THE REFORMER. 
HIS TEMPTATION. 

No fear lest praise should make us proud ! 

We know how cheaply that is won ; 
The idle homage of the crowd 

Is proof of tasks as idly done. 



206 THE PROFESSOR 

A surface-smile may pay the toil 

That follows still the conquering Right, 

With soft, white hands to dress the spoil 
That sunbrowned valor clutched in fight. 

Sing the sweet song of other days, 

Serenely placid, safely true, 
And o'er the present's parching ways 

Thy verse distils like evening dew. 

But speak in words of living power, — 
They fall like drops of scalding rain 

That plashed before the burning shower 
Swept o'er the cities of the plain ! 

Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale, — 
Then Passion's half-coiled adders spring, 

And, smitten through their leprous mail, 
Strike right and left in hope to sting. 

If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath, 
Thy feet on earth, thy heart above. 

Canst walk in peace thy kingly path. 
Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love,— 

Too kind for bitter words to grieve. 
Too firm for clamor to dismay, 

When Faith forbids thee to believe, 
And Meekness calls to disobey, — 

Ah, then beware of mortal pride ! 

The smiling pride that calmly scorns 
Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed 

In laboring on thy crown of thorns I 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 20/ 



IX. 

One of our boarders — perhaps more than one was 
concerned in it — sent in some questions to me, the 
other day, which, trivial as some of them are, I felt 
bound to answer. 

1. Whether a lady was ever known to write a letter 
covering only a single page? 

To this I answered, that there was a case on record 
where a lady had but half a sheet of paper and no 
envelope; and being obliged to send through the 
post-office, she covered only one side of the paper 
(crosswise, lengthwise, and diagonally). 

2. What constitutes a man a gentleman? 

To this I gave several answers, adapted to particu- 
lar classes of questioners. 

a. Not trying to be a gentleman. 

b. Self-respect underlying courtesy. 

c. Knowledge and observance of the fitness of 
things in social intercourse. 

d. £. s. d. (as many suppose). 

3. Whether face or figure is most attractive in the 
female sex. 

Answered in the following epigram, by a young 
man about town : — 

Quoth Tom, " Though fair her features be, 
It is her figure pleases me." 
" What may her figure be ? " I cried. 
" One hundred thousand! " he replied. 



208 THE PROFESSOR 

When this was read to the boarders, the young man 
John said he should Hke a chance to " step up " to a 
figger of that kind, if the girl was one of the right 
sort. 

The landlady said them that merried for money 
did n't deserve the blessin' of a good wife. Money 
was a great thing when them that had it made a good 
use of it. She had seen better days herself, and 
knew what it was never to want for anything. One 
of her cousins merried a very rich old gentleman, and 
she had heerd that he said he lived ten year longer 
than if he'd staid by himself without anybody to take 
care of him. There was nothin' like a wife for nussin' 
sick folks and them that couldn't take care of them- 
selves. 

The young man John got off a little wink, and 
pointed slyly with his thumb in the direction of our 
diminutive friend, for whom he seemed to think this 
speech was intended. 

If it was meant for him, he didn't appear to know 
that it was. Indeed, he seems somewhat listless of 
late, except when the conversation falls upon one of 
those larger topics that specially interest him, and 
then he grows excited, speaks loud and fast, sometimes 
almost savagely, — and, I have noticed once or twice, 
presses his left hand to his right side, as if there were 
something that ached, or weighed, or throbbed in 
that region. 

While he speaks in this way, the general conver- 
sation is interrupted, and we all hsten to him. Iris 
looks steadily in his face, and then he will turn as if 
magnetized and meet the amber eyes with his own 
melancholy gaze. I do believe that they have some 
kind of understanding together, that they meet else- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 209 

where than at our table, and that there is a mystery, 
which is going to break upon us all of a sudden, in- 
volving the relations of these two persons. From the 
very first, they have taken to each other. The one 
thing they have in common is the heroic will. In 
him, it shows itself in thinking his way straight- 
forward, in doing battle for " free trade and no right 
of search " on the high seas of religious controversy, 
and especially in fighting the battles of his crooked 
old city. In her, it is standing up for her little friend 
with the most queenly disregard of the code of board- 
ing-house etiquette. People may say or look what 
they like, — she will have her way about this senti- 
ment of hers. 

The Poor Relation is in a dreadful fidget whenever 
the Little Gentleman says anything that interferes with 
her own infallibility. She seems to think Faith must 
go with her face tied up, as if she had the toothache, 
— and that if she opens her mouth to the quarter the 
wind blows from, she will catch her " death o' cold." 

The landlady herself came to him one day, as I 
have found out, and tried to persuade him to hold his 
tongue. — The boarders was gettin' uneasy, — she 
said, — and some of 'em would go, she mistrusted, if 
he talked any more about things that belonged to the 
ministers to settle. She was a poor woman, that had 
known better days, but all her livin' depended on her 
boarders, and she was sure there was n't any of 'em 
she set so much by as she did by him ; but there was 
them that never liked to hear about sech things, 
except on Sundays. 

The Little Gentleman looked very smiling at the 
landlady, who smiled even more cordially in return, 
and adjusted her cap-ribbon with an unconscious 



210 THE PROFESSOR 

movement, — a reminiscence of the long-past pairing- 
time, when she had smoothed her locks and softened 
her voice, and won her mate by these and other bird- 
like graces. — My dear Madam, — he said, — I will 
remember your interests, and speak only of matters 
to which I am totally indifferent. — I don't doubt he 
meant this; but a day or two after, something stirred 
him up, and I heard his voice uttering itself aloud, 
thus : — 

— It must be done. Sir ! — he was saying, — it must 
be done ! Our religion has been Judaized, it has been 
Romanized, it has been Orientalized, it has been An- 
glicized, and the time is at hand when it must be 
Americanized ! Now, Sir, you see what American- 
izing is in politics; — it means that a man shall have 
a vote because he is a man, — and shall vote for whom 
he pleases, without his neighbor's interference. If he 
chooses to vote for the Devil, that is his look-out ; — 
perhaps he thinks the Devil is better than the other 
candidates; and I don't doubt he 'soften right, Sir! 
Just so a man's soul has a vote in the spiritual com- 
munity ; and it does n't do. Sir, or it won't do long, 
to call him " schismatic " and " heretic " and those 
other wicked names that the old murderous Inquisitors 
have left us to help along " peace and good-will to 
men"! 

As long as you could catch a man and drop him 
into an oubliette^ or pull him out a few inches longer 
by machinery, or put a hot iron through his tongue, 
or make him climb up a ladder and sit on a board at 
the top of a stake so that he should be slowly broiled 
by the fire kindled round it, there was some sense in 
these words; they led to something. But since we 
have done with those tools, we had better give up 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 211 

those words. I should like to see a Yankee adver- 
tisement like this!— (the Little Gentleman laughed 
fiercely as he uttered the words, — ) 

— Patent thumb-screws, — will crush the bone in 
three turns. 

— The cast-iron boot, with wedge and mallet,— 
only five dollars ! 

— The celebrated extension-rack, warranted to 
stretch a man six inches in twenty minutes, — money 
returned, if it proves unsatisfactory. 

I should like to see such an advertisement, I say, 
Sir! Now, what's the use of using the words that 
belonged with the thumb-screws, and the Blessed 
Virgin with the knives under her petticoats and 
sleeves and bodice, and the dry pan and gradual fire^ 
if we can't have the things themselves, Sir? What's 
the use oi painting the fire round a poor fellow, when 
you think it won't do to kindle one under him, — as 
they did at Valencia or Valladolid, or wherever it 
was? 

— What story is that? — I said. 

Why, — he answered, — at the last auto-da-fe, in 
1824 or '5, or somewhere there, — it's a traveller's 
story, but a mighty knowing traveller he is, — they 
had a " heretic " to use up according to the statutes 
provided for the crime of private opinion. They 
could n't quite make up their minds to burn him, so 
they only hung him in a hogshead painted all over 
with flames ! 

No, Sir ! when a man calls you names because you 
go to the ballot-box and vote for your candidate, or 
because you say this or that is your opinion, he for- 
gets in which half of the world he was born, Sir ! It 
won't be long, Sir, before we have Americanized 



212 THE PROFESSOR 

religion as we have Americanized government ; and 
then, Sir, every soul God sends into the world will 
be good in the face of all men for just so much of 
His " inspiration " as "giveth him understanding"! — 
None of my words. Sir ! none of my words ! 

— If Iris does not love this Little Gentleman, what 
does love look like when one sees it? She follows 
him with her eyes, she leans over toward him when 
he speaks, her face changes with the changes of his 
speech, so that one might think it was with her as 
with Christabel, — 

That all her features were resigned 
To this sole image in her mind. 

But she never looks at him with such intensity of 
devotion as when he says anything about the soul 
and the soul's atmosphere, religion. 

Women are twice as religious as men ; — all the 
world knows that. Whether they are any better^ in 
the eyes of Absolute Justice, might be questioned ; 
for the additional religious element supplied by sex 
hardly seems to be a matter of praise or blame. But 
in all common aspects they are so much above us 
that we get most of our religion from them, — from 
their teachings, from their example, — above all, from 
their pure affections. 

Now this poor little Iris had been talked to strang'ely 
in her childhood. Especially she had been told that 
she hated all good things, — which every sensible par- 
ent knows well enough is not true of a great many 
children, to say the least. I have sometimes ques- 
tioned whether many libels on human nature had not 
been a natural consequence of the celibacy of the 
clergy, which was enforced for so long a period. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 213 

The child had met this and some other equally en- 
couraging statements as to her spiritual conditions, 
early in life, and fought the battle of spiritual inde- 
pendence prematurely, as many children do. If all 
she did was hateful to God, what was the meaning of 
the approving or else the disapproving conscience, 
when she had done "right" or "wrong"? No 
"shoulder-striker" hits out straighter than a child 
with its logic. Why, I can remember lying in my 
bed in the nursery and settling questions which all 
that I have heard since and got out of books has 
never been able to raise again. If a child does not 
assert itself in this way in good season, it becomes 
just what its parents or teachers were, and is no bet- 
ter than a plaster image. — How old was I at the time ? 
— I suppose about 5823 years old, — that is, counting 
from Archbishop Usher's date of the Creation, and 
adding the life of the race, whose accumulated intel- 
ligence is a part of my inheritance, to my own. A 
good deal older than Plato, you see, and much more 
experienced than my Lord Bacon and most of the 
world's teachers.— Old books, as you well know, are 
books of the world's youth, and new books are fruits 
of its age. How many of all these ancient folios 
round me are like so many old cupels! The gold 
has passed out of them long ago, but their pores are 
full of the dross with which it was mingled. 

And so Iris — having thrown off that first lasso, 
which not only fetters, but chokes those whom it can 
hold, so that they give themselves up trembling and 
breathless to the great soul-subduer, who has them 
by the windpipe — had settled a brief creed for her- 
self, in which love of the neighbor, whom we have 
seen, was the first article, and love of the Creator, 



214 THE PROFESSOR 

whom we have not seen, grew out of this as its natu- 
ral development, being necessarily second in order of 
time to the first unselfish emotions which we feel 
for the fellow-creatures who surround us in our early 
years. 

The child must have some place of worship. What 
would a young girl be who never mingled her voice 
with the songs and prayers that rose all around her 
with every returning day of rest? And Iris was free 
to choose. Sometimes one and sometimes another 
would offer to carry her to this or that place of worship ; 
and when the doors were hospitably opened, she would 
often go meekly in by herself. It was a curious fact, 
that two churches as remote from each other in doc- 
trine as could well be divided her affections. 

The Church of Saint Polycarp had very much the 
look of a Roman Catholic chapel. I do not wish to 
run the risk of giving names to the ecclesiastical furni- 
ture which gave it such a Romish aspect ; but there 
were pictures, and inscriptions in antiquated characters, 
and there were reading-stands, and flowers on the altar, 
and other elegant arrangements. Then there were 
boys to sing alternately in choirs responsive to each 
other, and there was much bowing, with very loud re- 
sponding, and a long service and a short sermon, and 
a bag, such as Judas used to hold in the old pictures, 
was carried round to receive contributions. Everything 
was done not only " decently and in order," but, per- 
haps one might say, with a certain air of magnifying 
their office on the part of the dignified clergymen, often 
two or three in number. The music and the free wel- 
come were grateful to Iris, and she forgot her prejudices 
at the door of the chapel. For this was a church with 
open doors, with seats for all classes and all colors alike, 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 21 5 

— a church of zealous worshippers after their faith, of 
charitable and serviceable men and women, one that 
took care of its children and never forgot its poor, and 
whose people were much more occupied in looking out 
for their own souls than in attacking the faith of their 
neighbors. In its mode of worship there was a union 
of two qualities, — the taste and refinement, which the 
educated require just as much in their churches as else- 
where, and the air of stateliness, almost of pomp, which 
impresses the common worshipper, and is often not 
without its effect upon those who think they hold out- 
ward forms as of little value. Under the half-Romish 
aspect of the Church of Saint Polycarp, the young girl 
found a devout and loving and singularly cheerful reli- 
gious spirit. The artistic sense, which betrayed itself 
in the dramatic proprieties of its ritual, harmonized 
with her taste. The mingled murmur of the loud re- 
sponses, in those rhythmic phrases, so simple, yet 
so fervent, almost as if every tenth heart-beat, instead 
of its dull tic-tac, articulated itself as " Good Lord, de- 
liver us ! " — the sweet alternation of the two choirs, 
as their holy song floated from side to side, — the keen 
young voices rising like a flight of singing-birds that 
passes from one grove to another, carrying its music 
with it back and forward, — why should she not love 
these gracious outward signs of those inner harmonies 
which none could deny made beautiful the lives of 
many of her fellow-worshippers in the humble yet not 
inelegant Chapel of Saint Polycarp ? 

The young Marylander, who was born and bred to 
that mode of worship, had introduced her to the chapel, 
for which he did the honors for such of our boarders 
as were not otherwise provided for. I saw them look- 
ing over the same prayer-book one Sunday, and I could 



2l6 THE PROFESSOR 

not help thinking that two such young and handsome 
persons could hardly worship together in safety for a 
great while. But they seemed to mind nothing but 
their prayer-book. By-and-by the silken bag was 
handed round. — I donH believe she will ; — so awk- 
ward, you know ; — besides, she only came by invitation. 
There she is, with her hand in her pqcket, though, — 
and sure enough, her little bit of silver tinkled as it 
struck the coin beneath. God bless her ! she has n^t 
much to give ; but her eye glistens when she gives it, 
and that is all Heaven asks. — That was the first time 
I noticed these young people together, and I am sure 
they behaved with the most charming propriety, — in 
fact, there was one of our silent lady-boarders with them, 
whose eyes would have kept Cupid and Psyche to their 
good behavior. A day or two after this I noticed that 
the young gentleman had left his seat, which you may 
remember was at the corner diagonal to that of Iris, so 
that they have been as far removed from each other as 
they could be at the table. His new seat is three or 
four places farther down the table. Of course I made 
a romance out of this, at once. So stupid not to see 
it! How could it be otherwise? — Did you speak, 
Madam? I beg your pardon. (To my lady-reader.) 

I never saw anything like the tenderness with which 
this young girl treats her little deformed neighbor. 
If he were in the way of going to church, I know she 
would follow him. But his worship, if any, is not with 
the throng of men and women and staring children. 

I, the Professor, on the other hand, am a regular 
church-goer. I should go for various reasons, if I did 
not love it ; but I am happy enough to find great pleas- 
ure in the midst of devout multitudes, whether I can 
accept all their creeds or not. One place of worship 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 21/ 

comes nearer than the rest to my ideal standard, and 
to this it was that I carried our young girl. 

The Church of the Galileans, as it is called, is even 
humbler in outside pretensions than the Church of 
Saint Polycarp. Like that, it is open to all comers. 
The stranger who approaches it looks down a quiet 
street and sees the plainest of chapels, — a kind of 
wooden tent, that owes whatever grace it has to its 
pointed windows and the high, sharp roof, — traces, 
both, of that upward movement of ecclesiastical archi- 
tecture which soared aloft in cathedral-spires, shoot- 
ing into the sky as the spike of a flowering aloe from 
the cluster of broad, sharp-wedged leaves below. 
This suggestion of mediaeval symbolism, aided by a 
minute turret in which a hand-bell might have hung 
and found just room enough to turn over, was all of 
outward show the small edifice could boast. Within 
there was very little that pretended to be attractive. 
A small organ at one side, and a plain pulpit, showed 
that the building was a cliurch ; but it was a church 
reduced to its simplest expression. 

Yet when the great and wise monarch of the East 
sat upon his throne, in all the golden blaze of the 
spoils of Ophir and the freights of the navy of Tar- 
shish, his glory was not like that of this simple chapel 
in its Sunday garniture. For the lilies of the field, in 
their season, and the fairest flowers of the year, in due 
succession, were clustered every Sunday morning over 
the preacher's desk. Slight, thin-tissued blossoms of 
pink and blue and virgin white in early spring, then 
the full-breasted and deep-hearted roses of summer, 
then the velvet-robed crimson and yellow flowers of 
autumn, and in the winter delicate exotics that grew 
under skies of glass in the false summers of our crys- 



2l8 THE PROFESSOR 

tal palaces without knowing that it was the dreadful 
winter of New England which was rattling the doors 
and frosting the panes,— in their language the whole 
year told its history of life and growth and beauty from 
that simple desk. There was always at least one good 
sermon, — this floral homily. There was at least one 
good prayer, — that brief space when all were silent, 
after the manner of the Friends at their devotions. 

Here, too. Iris found an atmosphere of peace and 
love. The same gentle, thoughtful faces, the same 
cheerful but reverential spirit, the same quiet, the same 
life of active benevolence. But in all else how differ- 
ent from the Church of Saint Polycarp ! No cleri- 
cal costume, no ceremonial forms, no carefully trained 
choirs. A liturgy they have, to be sure, which does 
not scruple to borrow from the time-honored manuals 
of devotion, but also does not hesitate to change its 
expressions to its own liking. 

Perhaps the good people seem a little easy with each 
other ; — they are apt to nod familiarly, and have even 
been known to whisper before the minister came in. 
But it is a relief to get rid of that old Sunday — no — 
Sabbath face, which suggests the idea that the first 
day of the week is commemorative of some most 
mournful event. The truth is, these brethren and 
sisters meet very much as a family does for its devo- 
tions, not putting off their humanity in the least, con- 
sidering it on the whole quite a delightful matter to 
come together for prayer and song and good counsel 
from kind and wise lips. And if they are freer in 
their demeanor than some very precise congregations, 
they have not the air of a worldly set of people. 
Clearly they have not come to advertise their tailors 
and milliners, nor for the sake of exchanging criticisms 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 219 

on the literary character of the sermon they may hear. 
There is no restlessness and no restraint among these 
quiet, cheerful worshippers. One thing that keeps 
them calm and happy during the season so evidently 
trying to many congregations is, that they join very 
generally in the singing. In this way they get rid of 
that accumulated nervous force which escapes in all 
sorts of fidgety movements, so that a minister trying 
to keep his congregation still reminds one of a boy 
with his hand over the nose of a pump which another 
boy is working, — this spirting impatience of the 
people is so like the jets that find theii; way through 
his fingers, and the grand rush out at the final Amen ! 
has such a wonderful likeness to the gush that takes 
place when the boy pulls his hand away, with immense 
relief, as it seems, to both the pump and the officiating 
youngster. 

How sweet is this blending of all voices and all 
hearts in one common song of praise ! Some will 
sing a little loud, perhaps, — and now and then an 
impatient chorister will get a syllable or two in ad- 
vance, or an enchanted singer so lose all thought of 
time and place in the luxury of a closing cadence 
that he holds on to the last semi-breve upon his pri- 
vate responsibility ; but how much more of the spirit 
of the old Psalmist in the music of these imperfectly 
trained voices than in the academic niceties of the 
paid performers who take our musical worship out of 
our hands ! 

I am of the opinion that the creed of the Church of 
the Galileans is not laid down in as many details as 
that of the Church of Saint Polycarp. Yet I suspect, 
if one of the good people from each of those churches 
had met over the bed of a suffering fellow-creature, or 



220 THE PROFESSOR 

for the promotion of any charitable object, they would 
have found they had more in common than all the 
special beliefs or want of beliefs that separated them 
would amount to. There are always many who be- 
lieve that the fruits of a tree afford a better test of its 
condition than a statement of the composts with which 
it is dressed, — though the last has its meaning and 
importance, no doubt. 

Between these two churches, then, our young Iris 
divides her affections. But I doubt if she listens to 
the preacher at either with more devotion than she 
does to her little neighbor when he talks of these 
matters. 

What does he believe ? In the first place, there is 
some deep-rooted disquiet lying at the bottom of his 
soul, which makes him very bitter against all kinds 
of usurpation over the right of private judgment. 
Over this seems to lie a certain tenderness for hu- 
manity in general, bred out of life-long trial, I should 
say, but sharply streaked with fiery lines of wrath at 
various individual acts of wrong, especially if they 
come in an ecclesiastical shape, and recall to him 
the days when his mother's great-grandmother was 
strangled on Witch Hill, with a text from the Old 
Testament for her halter. With all this, he has a 
boundless belief in the future of this experimental 
hemisphere, and especially in the destiny of the free 
thought of its northeastern metropolis. 

— A man can see further. Sir, — he said one day, 
— from the top of Boston State-House, and see more 
that is worth seeing, than from all the pyramids and 
turrets and steeples in all the places in the world ! 
No smoke. Sir ; no fog, Sir ; and a clean sweep from 
the Outer Light and the sea beyond it to the New 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 221 

Hampshire mountains ! Yes, Sir, — and there are 
great truths that are higher than mountains and 
broader than seas, that people are looking for from 
the tops of these hills of ours, — such as the world 
never saw, though it might have seen them at Jerusa- 
lem, if its eyes had been open!— Where do they 
have most crazy people ? Tell me that. Sir ! 

I answered, that I had heard it said there were 
more in New England than in most countries, perhaps 
more than in any part of the world. 

Very good. Sir, — he answered. — When have there 
been most people killed and wounded in the course 
of this century ? 

During the wars of the French Empire, no doubt, 

— I said. 

That 's it ! that 's it ! — said the Little Gentleman ; 

— where the battle of intelligence is fought, there 
are most minds bruised and broken ! We Ve bat- 
tling for a faith here, Sir. 

The divinity-student remarked, that it was rather 
late in the world's history for men to be looking out 
for a new faith. 

I didn't say a new faith, — said the Little Gentle- 
man ;— old or new, it can't help being different here 
in this American mind of ours from anything that 
ever was before ; the people are new. Sir, and that 
makes the difference. One load of corn goes to the 
sty, and makes the fat of swine, — another goes to 
the farm-house, and becomes the muscle that clothes 
the right arms of heroes. It isn't where a pawn 
stands on the board that makes the difference, but 
what the game round it is when it is on this or that 
square. 

Can any man look round and see what Christian 



222 THE PROFESSOR 

countries are now doing, and how they are governed, 
and what is the general condition of society, without 
seeing that Christianity is the flag under which the 
world sails, and not the rudder that steers its course? 
No, Sir ! There was a great raft built about two 
thousand years ago, — call it an ark, rather, — the 
world's great ark ! big enough to hold all mankind, 
and made to be launched right out into the open 
waves of life, — and here it has been lying, one end on 
the shore and one end bobbing up and down in the 
water, men fighting all the time as to who should be 
captain and who should have the state-rooms, and 
throwing each other over the side because they could 
not agree about the points of compass, but the great 
vessel never getting afloat with its freight of nations 
and their rulers ; — and now, Sir, there is and has been 
for this long time a fleet of " heretic " lighters sailing 
out of Boston Bay and they have been saying, and 
they say now, and they mean to keep saying, " Pump 
out your bilge-water, shovel over your loads of idle 
ballast, get out your old rotten cargo, and we will 
carry it out into deep waters and sink it where it will 
never be seen again ; so shall the ark of the world's 
hope float on the ocean, instead of sticking in the 
dock-mud where it is lying ! " 

It 's a slow business, this of getting the ark launched. 
The Jordan was n't deep enough, and the Tiber was n't 
deep enough, and the Rhone wasn't deep enough, 
and the Thames was n't deep enough, — and perhaps 
the Charles is n't deep enough ; but I don't feel sure 
of that. Sir, and I love to hear the workmen knocking 
at the old blocks of tradition and making the ways 
smooth with the oil of the Good Samaritan. I don't 
know, Sir, — but I do think she stirs a little, — I do 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 223 

believe she slides ; — and when I think of what a work 
that is for the dear old three-breasted mother of 
American liberty, I would not take all the glory of all 
the greatest cities in the world for my birthright in the 
soil of little Boston ! 

— Some of us could not help smiling at this burst 
of local patriotism, especially when it finished with the 
last two words. 

And Iris smiled, too. But it was the radiant smile 
of pleasure which always lights up her face when her 
little neighbor gets excited on the great topics of 
progress in freedom and religion, and especially on 
the part which, as he pleases himself with believing, 
his own city is to take in that consummation of human 
development to which he looks forward. 

Presently she looked into his face with a changed 
expression, — the anxiety of a mother that sees her 
child suffering. 

You are not well, — she said. 

I am never well, — he answered. — His eyes fell 
mechanically on the death's-head ring he wore on his 
right hand. She took his hand as if it had been a 
baby's, and turned the grim device so that it should 
be out of sight. One slight, sad, slow movement of 
the head seemed to say, "The death-symbol is still 
there ! " 

A very odd personage, to be sure ! Seems to know 
what is going on, — reads books, old and new, — has 
many recent publications sent him, they tell me, — 
but, what is more curious, keeps up with the every- 
day affairs of the world, too. Whether he hears every- 
thing that is said with preternatural acuteness, or 
whether some confidential friend visits him in a quiet 
way, is more than I can tell. I can make nothing 



224 THE PROFESSOR 

more of the noises I hear in his room than my old 
conjectures. The movements I mention are less fre- 
quent, but I often hear the plaintive cry, — I observe 
that it is rarely laughing of late ; — I never have de- 
tected one articulate word, but I never heard such 
tones from anything but a human voice- 
There has been, of late, a deference approaching to 
tenderness, on the part of the boarders generally, so 
far as he is concerned. This is doubtless owing to 
the air of suffering which seems to have saddened 
his look of late. Either some passion is gnawing at 
him inwardly, or some hidden disease is at work upon 
him. 

— What 's the matter with Little Boston ? — said the 
young man John to me one day. — There a'n't much 
of him, anyhow ; but \ seems to me he looks peakeder 
than ever. The old woman says he 's in a bad way, 
'n' wants a nuss to take care of him. Them nusses 
that take care of old rich folks marry 'em sometimes, 
— 'n' they don't commonly live a great while after 
that. No^ Sir I I don't see what he wants to die for, 
after he 's taken so much trouble to live in such poor 
accommodations as that crooked body of his. I should 
like to know how his soul crawled into it, 'n' how it 's 
goin' to get out. What business has he to die, I 
should like to know ? Let Ma'am Allen (the gentle- 
man with the diamond^ die, if he likes, and be (this 
is a family-magazine) ; but we a'n't goin' to have him 
dyin'. Not by a great sight. Can't do without him 
anyhow. A'n't it fun to hear him blow off his steam? 

I believe the young fellow would take it as a per- 
sonal insult, if the Little Gentleman should show any 
symptoms of quitting our table for a better world. 

— In the mean time, what with going to church in 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 225 

company with our young lady, and taking every 
chance I could get to talk with her, I have found 
myself becoming, I will not say intimate, but well 
acquainted with Miss Iris. There is a certain frank- 
ness and directness about her that perhaps belong to 
her artist nature. For, you see, the one thing that 
marks the true artist is a clear perception and a firm, 
bold hand, in distinction from that imperfect mental 
vision and uncertain touch which give us the feeble 
pictures and the lumpy statues of the mere artisans 
on canvas or in stone. A true artist, therefore, can 
hardly fail to have a sharp, well-defined mental physi- 
ognomy. Besides this, many young girls have a 
strange audacity blended with their instinctive deli- 
cacy. Even in physical daring many of them are a 
match for boys ; whereas you will find few among 
mature women, and especially if they are mothers, 
who do not confess, and not unfrequently proclaim, 
their timidity. One of these young girls, as many 
of us hereabouts remember, climbed to the top of a 
jagged, slippery rock lying out in the waves, —an 
ugly height to get up, and a worse one to get down, 
even for a bold young fellow of sixteen. Another 
was in the way of climbing tall trees for crows' nests, 
— and crows generally know about how far boys can 
"shin up," and set their household establishments 
above that high- water-mark. Still another of these 
young ladies I saw for the first time in an open boat, 
tossing on the ocean ground-swell, a mile or two from 
shore, off a lonely island. She lost all her daring, 
after she had some girls of her own to look out 
for. 

Many blondes are very gentle, yielding in character, 
impressible, unelastic. But iht positive blondes, with 



226 THE PROFESSOR 

the golden tint running through them, are often full 
of character. They come, probably enough, from 
those deep-bosomed German women that Tacitus 
portrayed in such strong colors. The negative 
blondes, or those women whose tints have faded 
out as their line of descent has become impoverished, 
are of various blood, and in them the soul has often 
become pale with that blanching of the hair and loss 
of color in the eyes which makes them approach the 
character of Albinesses. 

I see in this young girl that union of strength and 
sensibihty which, when directed and impelled by the 
strong instinct so apt to accompany this combination 
of active and passive capacity, we call genius. She is 
not an accomplished artist, certainly, as yet ; but there 
is always an air in every careless figure she draws, as 
it were of upward aspiration, — the Hanoi John of 
Bologna's Mercury, — a lift to them, as if they had on 
winged sandals, like the herald of the Gods. I hear 
her singing sometimes ; and though she evidently is 
not trained, yet is there a wild sweetness in her fitful 
and sometimes fantastic melodies, — such as can come 
only from the inspiration of the moment, — strangely 
enough, reminding me of those long passages I have 
heard from my little neighbor's room, yet of different 
tone, and by no means to be mistaken for those weird 
harmonies. 

I cannot pretend to deny that I am interested in 
the girl. Alone, unprotected, as I have seen so many 
young girls left in boarding-houses, the centre of all 
the men's eyes that surround the table, watched with 
jealous sharpness by every woman, most of all by that 
poor relation of our landlady, who belongs to the 
class of women that like to catch others in mischief 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 22/ 

when they themselves are too mature for indiscre- 
tions, (as one sees old rogues turn to thief-catchers,) 
one of Nature's gendarmerie, clad in a complete suit 
of wrinkles, the cheapest coat-of-mail against the 
shafts of the great little enemy, — so surrounded, Iris 
spans this commonplace household-life of ours with 
her arch of beauty, as the rainbow, whose name she 
borrows, looks down on a dreary pasture with its feed- 
ing flocks and herds of indifferent animals. 

These young girls that live in boarding-houses can 
do pretty much as they will. The female gendarmes 
are off guard occasionally. The sitting-room has 
its solitary moments, when any two boarders who 
wish to meet may come together accidentally, {acci- 
dentally, I said. Madam, and I had not the slightest 
intention of Italicizing the word,) and discuss the 
social or political questions of the day, or any other 
subject that may prove interesting. Many charming 
conversations take place at the foot of the stairs, or 
while one of the parties is holding the latch of a door, 
— in the shadow of porticos, and especially on those 
outside balconies which some of our Southern neigh- 
bors call " stoops,'' the most charming places in the 
world when the moon is just right and the roses and 
honeysuckles are in full blow, — as we used to think 
in eighteen hundred and never mention it. 

On such a balcony or " stoop," one evening, I 
walked with Iris. We were on pretty good terms 
now, and I had coaxed her arm under mine, — my 
left arm, of course. That leaves one's right arm free 
to defend the lovely creature, if the rival — odious 
wretch ! — attempt to ravish her from your side. 
Likewise if one's heart should happen to beat a little, 
its mute language will not be without its meaning, as 



228 THE PROFESSOR 

you will perceive when the arm you hold begins to 
tremble, — a circumstance like to occur, if you happen 
to be a good-looking young fellow, and you two have 
the "stoop" to yourselves. 

We had it to ourselves that evening. The Koh-i- 
noor, as we called him, was in a corner with our 
landlady's daughter. The young fellow John was 
smoking out in the yard. The gendar-me was afraid 
of the evening air, and kept inside. The young Mary- 
lander came to the door, looked out and saw us walk- 
ing together, gave his hat a pull over his forehead and 
stalked oif. I felt a slight spasm, as it were, in the 
arm I held, and saw the girl's head turn over her 
shoulder for a second. What a kind creature this is ! 
She has no special interest in this youth, but she does 
not like to see a young fellow going oif because he 
feels as if he were not wanted. 

She had her locked drawing-book under her arm. — 
Let me take it, — I said. 

She gave it to me to carry. 

This is full of caricatures of all of us, I am sure, — 
said I. 

She laughed, and said, — No, — not all of you. 

I was there, of course ? 

Why, no, — she had never taken so much pains 
with me. 

Then she would let me see the inside of it? 

She would think of it. 

Just as we parted, she took a little key from her 
pocket and handed it to me. — This unlocks my 
naughty book, — she said, — you shall see it. I am 
not afraid of you. 

I don't know whether the last words exactly 
pleased me. At any rate, I took the book and hurried 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 229 

with it to my room. I opened it, and saw, in a few 
glances, that I held the heart of Iris in my hand. 

— I have no verses for you this month, except these 
few lines suggested by the season. 

MIDSUMMER. 

Here! sweep these foolish leaves away, — 
I will not crush my brains to-day ! — 
Look ! are the southern curtains drawn ? 
Fetch me a fan, and so begone ! 

Not that, — the palm-tree's rustling leaf 
Brought from a parching coral-reef! 
Its breath is heated ; — I would swing 
The broad gray plumes, — the eagle's wing. 

I hate these roses' feverish blood ! — 
Pluck me a half-blown lily-bud, 
A long-stemmed lily from the lake, 
Cold as a coiling water-snake. 

Rain me sweet odors on the air, 
And wheel me up my Indian chair, 
And spread some book not overwise 
Flat out before my sleepy eyes. 

— Who knows it not, — this dead recoil 
Of weary fibres stretched with toil, — 
The pulse that flutters faint and low 
When Summer's seething breezes blow ? 

O Nature ! bare thy loving breast 
And give thy child one hour of rest, — 
One little hour to lie unseen 
Beneath thy scarf of leafy green ! 

So, curtained by a singing pine. 

Its murmuring voice shall blend with mine, 

Till, lost in dreams, my faltering lay 

In sweeter music dies away. 



230 THE PROFESSOR 



X. 

Iris, Her Book. 

I PRAY thee, by the soul of her that bore thee, 
By thine own sister's spirit I implore thee, 
Deal gently with the leaves that lie before thee ! 

For Iris had no mother to infold her, 
Nor ever leaned upon a sister's shoulder, 
Telling the twilight thoughts that Nature told her. 

She had not learned the mystery of awaking 
Those chorded keys that soothe a sorrow's aching, 
Giving the dumb heart voice, that else were breakmg. 

Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pictured token ! 
Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken, 
Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken ? 

She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies, — 

Walked simply clad, a queen of high romances. 

And talked strange tongues with angels in her trances. 

Twin-souled she seemed, a twofold nature wearing, — 

Sometimes a flashing falcon in her daring. 

Then a poor mateless dove that droops despairing. 

Questioning all things : Why her Lord had sent her ? 
What were these torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her ? 
Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor. 

And then all tears and anguish : Queen of Heaven, 
Sweet Saints, and Thou by mortal sorrows riven, 
Save me ! oh, save me ! Shall I die forgiven ? 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 23 1 

And then — Ah, God ! But nay, it Httle matters: 
Look at the wasted seeds that autumn scatters. 
The myriad germs that Nature shapes and shatters ! 

If she had — Well ! She longed, and knew not wherefore. 
Had the world nothing she might live to care for ? 
No second self to say her evening prayer for ? 

She knew the marble shapes that set men dreaming, 
Yet with her shoulders bare and tresses streaming 
Showed not unlovely to her simple seeming. 

Vain ? Let it be so ! Nature was her teacher. 
What if a lonely and unsistered creature 
Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature, 

Saying, unsaddened, — This shall soon be faded, 
And double-hued the shining tresses braided, 
And all the sunlight of the morning shaded ? 

— This her poor book is full of saddest follies, 
Of tearful smiles and laughing melancholies. 
With summer roses twined and wintry hollies. 

In the strange crossing of uncertain chances, 
Somewhere, beneath some maiden's tear-dimmed glances, 
May fall her little book of dreams and fancies. 

Sweet sister ! Iris, who shall never name thee. 
Trembling for fear her open heart may shame thee, 
Speaks from this vision-haunted page to claim thee. 

Spare her, I pray thee ! If the maid is sleeping, 
Peace with her ! she has had her hour of weeping. 
No more ! She leaves her memory in thy keeping. 

These verses were written in the first leaves of the 
locked volume. As I turned the pages, I hesitated 
for a moment. Is it quite fair to take advantage of 
a generous, trusting impulse to read the unsunned 



232 THE PROFESSOR 

depths of a young girPs nature, which I can look 
through, as the balloon-voyagers tell us they see from 
their hanging-baskets through the translucent waters 
which the keenest eye of such as sail over them in 
ships might strive to pierce in vain ? Why has the 
child trusted 7ne with such artless confessions, — self- 
revelations, which might be whispered by trembling 
lips, under the veil of twilight, in sacred confessionals, 
but which I cannot look at in the light of day without 
a feeling of wronging a sacred confidence ? 

To all this the answer seemed plain enough after a 
little thought. She did not know how fearfully she 
had disclosed herself ; she was too profoundly inno- 
cent. Her soul was no more ashamed than the fair 
shapes that walked in Eden without a thought of 
over-liberal loveliness. Having nobody to tell her 
story to, — having, as she said in her verses, no musi- 
cal instrument to laugh and cry with her, — nothing, 
in short, but the language of pen and pencil, — all the 
veinings of her nature were impressed on these pages, 
as those of a fresh leaf are transferred to the blank 
sheets which enclose it. It was the same thing which 
I remember seeing beautifully shown in a child of 
some four or five years we had one day at our board- 
ing-house. This child was a deaf mute. But its soul 
had the inner sense that answers to hearing, and the 
shaping capacity which through natural organs real- 
izes itself in words. Only it had to talk with its face 
alone; and such speaking eyes, such rapid alterna- 
tions of feeling and shifting expressions of thought 
as flitted over its face, I have never seen in any other 
human countenance. 

I wonder if something of spiritual transparency 
is not typified in the golden-d/oncie organization. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 233 

There are a great many little creatures, — many small 
fishes, for instance, — which are literally transparent, 
with the exception of some of the internal organs. 
The heart can be seen beating as if in a case of 
clouded crystal. The central nervous column with its 
sheath runs as a dark stripe through the whole length 
of the diaphanous muscles of the body. Other little 
creatures are so darkened with pigment that we can 
see only their surface. Conspirators and poisoners 
are painted with black, beady eyes and swarthy hue ; 
Judas, in Leonardo's picture, is the model of them all. 
However this may be, I should say there never had 
been a book like this of Iris, — so full of the heart's 
silent language, so transparent that the heart itself 
could be seen beating through it. I should say there 
never could have been such a book, but for one recol- 
lection, which is not peculiar to myself, but is shared 
by a certain number of my former townsmen. If you 
think I overcolor this matter of the young girFs book, 
hear this, which there are others, as I just said, besides 
myself, will tell you is strictly true. 



The Book of the Three Maiden Sisters. 

In the town called Cantabridge, now a city, water- 
veined and gas windpiped, in the street running down 
to the Bridge, beyond which dwelt Sally, told of in a 
book of a friend of mine, was of old a house inhabited 
by three maidens. They left no near kinsfolk, I be- 
lieve ; if they did, I have no ill to speak of them ; 
for they lived and died in all good report and maid- 
enly credit. The house they lived in was of the small, 
gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the shape of 



234 ^-^^ PROFESSOR 

Esquires' houses, but after the size of the dwellings 
of handicraftsmen. The lower story was fitted up as 
a shop. Specially was it provided with one of those 
half-doors now so rarely met with, which are to whole 
doors as spencers worn by old folk are to coats. 
They speak of limited commerce united with a social 
or observing disposition on the part of the shopkeeper, 
— allowing, as they do, talk with passers-by, yet keep- 
ing off such as have not the excuse of business to 
cross the threshold. On the door-posts, at either 
side, above the half-door, hung certain perennial arti- 
cles of merchandise, of which my memory still has 
hanging among its faded photographs a kind of netted 
scarf and some pairs of thick woollen stockings. 
More articles, but not very many, were stored inside ; 
and there was one drawer, containing children's books, 
out of which I once was treated to a minute quarto 
ornamented with handsome cuts. This was the only 
purchase I ever knew to be made at the shop kept by 
the three maiden ladies, though it is probable there 
were others. So long as I remember the shop, 
the same scarf and, I should say, the same stock- 
ings, hung on the door-posts. — [You think I am ex- 
aggerating again, and that shopkeepers would not 
keep the same article exposed for years. Come to 
me, the Professor, and I will take you in five minutes 
to a shop in this city where I will show you an article 
hanging now in the very place where more than thirty 
years ago I myself inquired the price of it of the pres- 
ent head of the establishment.] 

The three maidens were of comely presence, and 
one of them had had claims to be considered a Beauty. 
When I saw them in the old meeting-house on Sun- 
days, as they rustled in through the aisles in silks and 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 235 

satins, not gay, but more than decent, as I remember 
them, I thought of My Lady Bountiful in the history 
of " Little King Pippin," and of the Madam Blaize of 
Goldsmith (who, by the way, must have taken the 
hint of it from a pleasant poem, " Monsieur de la Pa- 
lisse," attributed to De la Monnoye, in the collection 
of French songs before me).* There was some story 
of an old romance in which the Beauty had played her 
part. Perhaps they all had had lovers ; for, as I said, 
they were shapely and seemly personages, as I remem- 
ber them ; but their lives were out of the flower and 
in the berry at the time of my first recollections. 

One after another they all three dropped away, ob- 
jects of kindly attention to the good people round, 
leaving little or almost nothing, and nobody to inherit 
it. Not absolutely nothing, of course. There must 
have been a few old dresses, — perhaps some bits of 
furniture, a Bible, and the spectacles the good old 
souls read it through, and little keepsakes, such as 
make us cry to look at, when we find them in old 
drawers ; — such relics there must have been. But 
there was more. There was a manuscript of some 
hundred pages, closely written, in which the poor 
things had chronicled for many years the incidents of 
their daily life. After their death it was passed round 
somewhat freely, and fell into my hands. How I have 
cried and laughed and colored over it ! There was 
nothing in it to be ashamed of, perhaps there was noth- 
ing in it to laugh at, but such a picture of the mode 
of being of poor simple good old women I do believe 
was never drawn before. And there were all the 
smallest incidents recorded, such as do really make up 

* Vide Bartlett's " Familiar Quotations." 



236 THE PROFESSOR 

humble life, but which die out of all mere literary 
memoirs, as the houses where the Egyptians or the 
Athenians lived crumble and leave only their temples 
standing. I know, for instance, that on a given day of 
a certain year, a kindly woman, herself a poor widow, 
now, I trust, not without special mercies in heaven for 
her good deeds, — for I read her name on a proper 
tablet in the churchyard a week ago, — sent a fractional 
pudding from her own table to the Maiden Sisters, 
who, I fear, from the warmth and detail of their de- 
scription, were fasting, or at least on short allowance, 
about that time. I know who sent them the segment 
of melon, which in her riotous fancy one of them 
compared to those huge barges to which we give the 
ungracious name of mud-scows. But why should I 
illustrate further what it seems almost a breach of 
confidence to speak of ? Some kind friend, who 
could challenge a nearer interest than the curious 
strangers into whose hands the book might fall, at last 
claimed it, and I was glad that it should be henceforth 
sealed to common eyes. I learned from it that every 
good and, alas ! every evil act we do may slumber un- 
forgotten even in some earthly record. I got a new 
lesson in that humanity which our sharp race finds it 
so hard to learn. The poor widow, fighting hard to 
feed and clothe and educate her children, had not for- 
gotten the poorer ancient maidens. I remembered it 
the other day, as I stood by her place of rest, and I 
felt sure that it was remembered elsewhere. I know 
there are prettier words than piiddijig^ but I can't help 
it, — the pudding went upon the record, I feel sure, 
with the mite which was cast into the treasury by that 
other poor widow whose deed the world shall remem- 
ber forever, and with the coats and garments which the 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 237 

good women cried over, when Tabitha, called by in- 
terpretation Dorcas, lay dead in the upper chamber, 
with her charitable needlework strewed around her. 



— Such was the Book of the Maiden Sisters. You 
will believe me more readily now when I tell you that 
I found the soul of Iris in the one that lay open before 
me. Sometimes it was a poem that held it, sometimes 
a drawing, — angel, arabesque, caricature, or a mere 
hieroglyphic symbol of which I could make nothing. 
A rag of cloud on one page, as 1 remember, with a 
streak of red zigzagging out of it across the paper as 
naturally as a crack runs through a China bowl. ^ On 
the next page a dead bird, — some little favorite, I 
suppose ; for it was worked out with a special love, and 
I saw on the leaf that sign with which once or twice 
in my life I have had a letter sealed, — a round spot 
where the paper is slightly corrugated, and, if there 
is writing there, the letters are somewhat faint and 
blurred. Most of the pages were surrounded with 
emblematic traceries. It was strange to me at first 
to see how often she introduced those homelier wild- 
flowers which we call w^^^i", — for it seemed there was 
none of them too humble for her to love, and none too 
litde cared for by Nature to be without its beauty for 
her artist eye and pencil. By the side of the garden- 
flowers,— of Spring's curled darlings, the hyacinths, 
of rosebuds, dear to sketching maidens, of flower-de- 
luces and morning-glories, — nay, oftener than these, 
and more tenderly caressed by the colored brush that 
rendered them, — were those common growths which 
fling themselves to be crushed under our feet and our 
wheels, making themselves so cheap in .this perpetual 



238 THE PROFESSOR 

martyrdom that we forget each of them is a ray of the 
Divine beauty. 

Yellow japanned buttercups and star-disked dande- 
lions, — just as we see them lying in the grass, like 
sparks that have leaped from the kindling sun of 
summer; the profuse daisy-like flower which whitens 
the fields, to the great disgust of liberal shepherds, 
yet seems fair to loving eyes, with its button-like 
mpund of gold set round with milk-white rays ; the 
tall-stemmed succory, setting its pale blue flowers 
aflame, one after another, sparingly, as the lights are 
kindled in the candelabra of decaying palaces where 
the heirs of dethroned monarchs are dying out ; the 
red and white clovers ; the broad, flat leaves of the 
plaintain, — "the white man's foot,"" as the Indians 
called it, — the wiry, jointed stems of that iron creep- 
ing plant which we call " VvioX.-grass^^'' and which loves 
its life so dearly that it is next to impossible to mur- 
der it with a hoe, as it clings to the cracks of the pave- 
ment; — all these plants, and many more, she wove 
into her fanciful garlands and borders. — On one of 
the pages were some musical notes. I touched them 
from curiosity on a piano belonging to one of our 
boarders. Strange! There are passages that I have 
heard before, plaintive, full of some hidden meaning, 
as if they were gasping for words to interpret them. 
She must have heard the strains that have so excited 
my curiosity, coming from my neighbor's chamber. 
The illuminated border she had traced round the page 
that held these notes took the place of the words they 
seemed to be aching for. Above, a long monotonous 
sweep of waves, leaden-hued, anxious and jaded and 
sullen, if you can imagine such an expression in water. 
On one side an Alpine needle^ as it were, of black 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 239 

basalt, girdled with snow. On the other a threaded 
waterfall. The red morning-tint that shone in the 
drops had a strange look, — one would say the cliff 
was bleeding ; — perhaps she did not mean it. Below, 
a stretch of sand, and a solitary bird of prey, with his 
wings spread over some unseen object. — And on the 
very next page a procession wound along, after the 
fashion of that on the title-page of Fuller's " Holy 
War," in which I recognized without difficulty every 
boarder at our table in all the glory of the most 
resplendent caricature, — three only excepted, — the 
Little Gentleman, myself, and one other. 

I confess I did expect to see something that would 
remind me of the girPs little deformed neighbor, if 
not portraits of him. — There is a left arm again, 
though ; — no, — that is from the " Fighting Gladia- 
tor," — the '-'■Jeune Heros combattant " of the Louvre ; 
— there is the broad ring of the shield. From a cast, 
doubtless. [The separate casts of the " Gladiator's" 
arm look immense ; but in its place the limb looks 
light, almost slender, — such is the perfection of that 
miraculous marble. I never felt as if I touched the life 
of the old Greeks until I looked on that statue.] — Here 
is something very odd, to be sure. An Eden of all the 
humped and crooked creatures! What could have 
been in her head when she worked out such a fantasy ? 
She has contrived to give them all beauty or dignity 
or melancholy grace. A Bactrian camel lying under 
a palm. A dromedary flashing up the sands, — spray 
of the dry ocean sailed by the " ship of the desert." 
A herd of buffaloes, uncouth, shaggy-maned, heavy in 
the forehand, light in the hind-quarter. [The buffalo 
is the lion of the ruminants.] And there is a Norman 
horse, with his huge, rough collar, echoing, as it were, 



240 THE PROFESSOR 

the natural form of the other beast. And here are 
twisted serpents ; and stately swans, with answering 
curves in their bowed necks, as if they had snake's 
blood under their white feathers; and grave, high- 
shouldered herons, standing on one foot like cripples, 
and looking at life round them with the cold stare 
of monumental effigies. — A very odd page indeed ! 
Not a creature in it without a curve or a twist, and 
not one of them a mean figure to look at. You can 
make your own comment ; I am fanciful, you know. 
I believe she is trying to idealize what we vulgarly 
call deformity, which she strives to look at in the light 
of one of Nature's eccentric curves, belonging to her 
system of beauty, as the hyperbola and parabola be- 
long to the conic sections, though we cannot see 
them as symmetrical and entire figures, like the circle 
and ellipse. At any rate, I cannot help referring this 
paradise of twisted spines to some idea floating in her 
head connected with her friend whom Nature has 
warped in the moulding. — That is nothing to an- 
other transcendental fancy of mine. I believe her 
soul thinks itself in his little crooked body at times, 
— if it does not really get freed or half freed from her 
own. Did you ever see a case of catalepsy? You 
know what I mean, — transient loss of sense, will, and 
motion ; body and limbs taking any position in which 
they are put, as if they belonged to a lay-figure. She 
had been talking with him and listening to him one 
day when the boarders moved from the table nearly 
all at once. But she sat as before, her cheek resting 
on her hand, her amber eyes wide open and still. I 
went to her, — she was breathing as usual, and her 
heart was beating naturally enough, — but she did not 
answer. I bent her arm ; it was as plastic as softened 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 24 1 

wax, and kept the place I gave it. — This will never 
do, though, — and I sprinkled a few drops of water on 
her forehead. She started and looked round. — I have 
been in a dream, — she said ; — I feel as if all my 
strength were in this arm ; — give me your hand ! — 
She took my right hand in her left, which looked soft 
and white enough, but — Good Heaven! I believe she 
will crack my bones ! All the nervous power in her 
body must have flashed through those muscles ; as 
when a crazy lady snaps her iron window-bars, — she 
who could hardly glove herself when in her common 
health. Iris turned pale, and the tears came to her 
eyes ; — she saw she had given pain. Then she 
trembled, and might have fallen but for me ; — the 
poor little soul had been in one of those trances that 
belong to the spiritual pathology of higher natures, 
mostly those of women. 

To come back to this wondrous book of Iris. Two 
pages faced each other which I took for symbolical 
expressions of two states of mind. On the left hand, 
a bright blue sky washed over the page, specked with 
a single bird. No trace of earth, but still the winged 
creature seemed to be soaring upward and upward. 
Facing it, one of those black dungeons such as Pira- 
nesi alone of all men has pictured. I am sure she must 
have seen those awful prisons of his, out of which 
the Opium-Eater got his nightmare vision, described 
by another as "cemeteries of departed greatness, 
where monstrous and forbidden things are crawling 
and twining their slimy convolutions among moul- 
dering bones, broken sculpture, and mutilated in- 
scriptions.'" Such a black dungeon faced the page 
that held the blue sky and the single bird; at the 
bottom of it something was coiled, — what, and 



242 THE PROFESSOR 

whether meant for dead or alive, my eyes could not 
make out. 

I told you the young girl's soul was in this book. 
As I turned over the last leaves I could not help 
starting. There were all sorts of faces among the 
arabesques which laughed and scowled in the borders 
that ran round the pages. They had mostly the out- 
line of childish or womanly or manly beauty, without 
very distinct individuality. But at last it seemed to 
me that some of them were taking on a look not 
wholly unfamiliar to me ; there were features that did 
not seem new. — Can it be so ? Was there ever such 
innocence in a creature so full of life ? She tells her 
heart's secrets as a three-years-old child betrays itself 
without need of being questioned ! This was no com- 
mon miss, such as are turned out in scores from the 
young-lady-factories, with parchments warranting them 
accomplished and virtuous, — in case anybody should 
question the fact. I began to understand her; — and 
what is so charming as to read the secret of a real 
fe7n77ie i?ico7?iprise ? — for such there are, though they 
are not the ones who think themselves uncompre- 
hended women. 

Poets are never young, in one sense. Their deli- 
cate ear hears the far-ofif whispers of eternity, which 
coarser souls must travel towards for scores of years 
before their dull sense is touched by them. A mo- 
ment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience. 
I have frequently seen children, long exercised by 
pain and exhaustion, whose features had a strange 
look of advanced age. Too often one meets such in 
our charitable institutions. Their faces are saddened 
and wrinkled, as if their few summers were threescore 
years and ten. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 243 

And so, many youthful poets have written as if 
their hearts were old before their time ; their pensive 
morning twilight has been as cool and saddening as 
that of evening in more common lives. The pro- 
found melancholy of those lines of Shelley, 

" I could lie down like a tired child 
And weep away the life of care 
Which I have borne and yet must bear," 

came from a heart, as he says, " too soon grown old," 
— at twenty-six years, as dull people count time, even 
when they talk of poets. 

I know enough to be prepared for an exceptional 
nature, — only this gift of the hand in rendering every 
thought in form and color, as well as in words, gives 
a richness to this young girPs alphabet of feeling and 
imagery that takes me by surprise. And then be- 
sides, and most of all, I am puzzled at her sudden 
and seemingly easy confidence in me. Perhaps I owe 
it to my — Well, no matter ! How one must love the 
editor who first calls him the venerable So-and-So! 

— I locked the book and sighed as I laid it down. 
The world is always ready to receive talent with open 
arms. Very often it does not know what to do with 
genius. Talent is a docile creature. It bows its 
head meekly while the world slips the collar over it. 
It backs into the shafts like a lamb. It draws its load 
cheerfully, and is patient of the bit and of the whip. 
But genius is always impatient of its harness ; its 
wild blood makes it hard to train. 

Talent seems, at first, in one sense, higher than 
genius, — namely, that it is more uniformly and abso- 
lutely submitted to the will, and therefore more dis- 
tinctly human in its character. Genius, on the other 



244 ^^^ PROFESSOR 

hand, is much more like those instincts which govern 
the admirable movements of the lower creatures, and 
therefore seems to have something of the lower or 
animal character. A goose flies by a chart which the 
Royal Geographical Society could not mend. A poet, 
like the goose, sails without visible landmarks to un- 
explored regions of truth, which philosophy has yet 
to lay down on its atlas. The philosopher gets his 
track by observation; the poet trusts to his inner 
sense, and makes the straighter and swifter line. 

And yet, to look at it in another light, is not even 
the lowest instinct more truly divine than any volun- 
tary human act done by the suggestion of reason? 
What is a bee's architecture but an //;/ obstructed 
divine thought? — what is a builder's approximative 
rule but an obstructed thought of the Creator, a muti- 
lated and imperfect copy of some absolute rule Divine 
Wisdom has established, transmitted through a human 
soul as an image through clouded glass ? 

Talent is a very common family-trait; genius be- 
longs rather to individuals; — just as you find one 
giant or one dwarf in a family, but rarely a whole 
brood of either. Talent is often to be envied, and 
genius very commonly to be pitied. It stands twice 
the chance of the other of dying in a hospital, in jail, 
in debt, in bad repute. It is a perpetual insult to 
mediocrity ; its every word is a trespass against some- 
body's vested ideas, — blasphemy against somebody's 
O';;/, or intangible private truth. 

— What is the use of my weighing out antitheses 
in this way, like a rhetorical grocer? — You know 
twenty men of talent, who are making their way in 
the world; you may, perhaps, know one man of 
genius, and very likely do not want to know any 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 245 

more. For a divine instinct, such as drives the goose 
southward and the poet heavenward, is a hard thing 
to manage, and proves too strong for many whom it 
possesses. It must have been a terrible thing to have 
a friend hke Chatterton or Burns. And here is a 
being who certainly has more than talent, at once 
poet and artist in tendency, if not yet fairly developed, 
— a woman, too; — and genius grafted on woman- 
hood is like to overgrow it and break its stem, as you 
may see a grafted fruit-tree spreading over the stock 
which cannot keep pace with its evolution. 

I think now you know something of this young per- 
son. She wants nothing but an atmosphere to expand 
in. Now and then one meets with a nature for which 
our hard, practical New England life is obviously ut- 
terly incompetent. It comes up, as a Southern seed, 
dropped by accident in one of our gardens, finds 
itself trying to grow and blow into flower among the 
homely roots and the hardy shrubs that surround it. 
There is no question that certain persons who are 
born among us find themselves many degrees too far 
north. Tropical by organization, they cannot fight 
for life with our eastern and northwestern breezes 
without losing the color and fragrance into which 
their lives would have blossomed in the latitude of 
myrtles and oranges. Strange eff"ects are produced 
by suffering any living thing to be developed under 
conditions such as Nature had not intended for it. 
A French physiologist confined some tadpoles under 
water in the dark. Removed from the natural stimu- 
lus of light, they did not develop legs and arms at the 
proper period of their growth, and so become frogs ; 
they swelled and spread into gigantic tadpoles. I 
have seen a hundred colossal human tadpoles, — 



246 THE PROFESSOR 

overgrown larvce or embryos ; nay, I am afraid we 
Protestants should look on a considerable proportion 
of the Holy Father's one hundred and thirty-nine 
millions as spiritual larvcs, sculling about in the dark 
by the aid of their caudal extremities, instead of stand- 
ing on their legs, and breathing by gills, instead of 
taking the free air of heaven into the lungs made to 
receive it. Of course we never try to keep young 
souls in the tadpole state, for fear they should get a 
pair or two of legs by-and-by and jump out of the 
pool where they have been bred and fed! Never! 
Never. Never? 

Now to go back to our plant. You may know, that, 
for the earlier stages of development of almost any 
vegetable, you only want air, water, light, and warmth. 
But by-and-by, if it is to have special complex princi- 
ples as a part of its organization, they must be sup- 
plied by the soil ; — your pears will crack, if the root 
of the tree gets no iron, — your asparagus-bed wants 
salt as much as you do. Just at the period of adoles- 
cence, the mind often suddenly begins to come into 
flower and to set its fruit. Then it is that many 
young natures, having exhausted the spiritual soil 
round them of all it contains of the elements they 
demand, wither away, undeveloped and uncolored, 
unless they are transplanted. 

Pray for these dear young souls ! This is the 
second jiaUiral birth ; — for I do not speak of those 
peculiar religious experiences which form the point of 
transition in many lives between the consciousness 
of a general relation to the Divine nature and a special 
personal relation. The litany should count a prayer 
for them in the list of its supplications ; masses should 
be said for them as for souls in purgatory ; all good 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 247 

Christians should remember them as they remember 
those in peril through travel or sickness or in warfare. 

I would transport this child to Rome at once, if I 
had my will. She should ripen under an Italian sun. 
She should walk under the frescoed vaults of palaces, 
until her colors deepened to those of Venetian beau- 
ties, and her forms were perfected into rivalry with 
the Greek marbles, and the east wind was out of her 
soul. Has she not exhausted this lean soil of the 
elements her growing nature requires ? 

I do not know. The magnolia grows and comes 
into full flower on Cape Ann, many degrees out of 
its proper region. I was riding once along that de- 
licious road between the hills and the sea, when we 
passed a thicket where there seemed to be a chance of 
finding it. In five minutes I had fallen on the trees 
in full blossom, and filled my arms with the sweet, re- 
splendent flowers. I could not believe I was in our 
cold, northern Essex, which, in the dreary season 
when I pass its slate-colored, unpainted farm-houses, 
and huge, square, windy, 'squire-built " mansions," 
looks as brown and unvegetating as an old rug with 
its patterns all trodden out and the colored fringe 
worn from all its border. 

If the magnolia can bloom in northern New Eng- 
land, why should not a poet or a painter come to his 
full growth here just as well? Yes, but if the gor- 
geous tree-flower is rare, and only as if by a freak of 
Nature springs up in a single spot among the beeches 
and alders, is there not as much reason to think the per- 
fumed flower of imaginative genius will find it hard to 
be born and harder to spread its leaves in the clear, cold 
atmosphere of our ultra-temperate zone of humanity? 

Take the poet. On the one hand, I believe that 



248 THE PROFESSOR 

a person with the poetical faculty finds material every- 
where. The grandest objects of sense and thought 
are common to all climates and civilizations. The 
sky, the woods, the waters, the storms, life, death, love, 
the hope and vision of eternity, — these are images 
that write themselves in poetry in every soul which 
has anything of the divine gift. 

On the other hand, there is such a thing as a lean, 
impoverished life, in distinction from a rich and sug- 
gestive one. Which our common New England life 
might be considered, I will not decide. But there are 
some things I think the poet misses in our western 
Eden. I trust it is not unpatriotic to mention them 
in this point of view, as they come before us in so 
many other aspects. 

There is no sufficient flavor of humanity in the soil 
out of which we grow. At Cantabridge, near the sea, I 
have once or twice picked up an Indian arrowhead in 
a fresh furrow. At Canoe Meadow, in the Berk- 
shire Mountains, I have found Indian arrowheads. 
So everywhere Indian arrowheads. Whether a hun- 
dred or a thousand years old, who knows? who 
cares? There is no history to the red race, — there 
is hardly an individual in it ; — a few instincts on 
legs and holding a tomahawk, — there is the Indian 
of all time. The story of one red ant is the story of 
all red ants. So, the poet, in trying to wing his 
way back through the life that has kindled, flitted, 
and faded along our watercourses and on our south- 
ern hillsides for unknown generations, finds noth- 
ing to breathe or fly in ; he meets 

" A vast vacuity ! all unawares, 
Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops 
Ten thousand fathom deep." 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 249 

But think of the Old World, — that part of it which 
is the seat of ancient civilization! The stakes of the 
Britons' stockades are still standing in the bed of 
the Thames. The ploughman turns up an old Sax- 
on's bones, and beneath them is a tessellated pave- 
ment of the time of the Caesars. In Italy, the works 
of mediaeval Art seem to be of yesterday, — Rome, 
under her kings, is but an intruding new-comer, as we 
contemplate her in the shadow of the Cyclopean walls 
of Fiesole or Volterra. It makes a man human to 
live on these old humanized soils. He cannot help 
marching in step with his kind in the rear of such a 
procession. They say a dead man's hand cures swell- 
ings, if laid on them. There is nothing like the dead 
cold hand of the Past to take down our tumid egotism 
and lead us into the solemn flow of the life of our 
race. Rousseau came out of one of his sad self-tortur- 
ing fits, as he cast his eye on the arches of the old 
Roman aqueduct, the Pont du Card. 

I am far from denying that there is an attraction in 
a thriving railroad village. The new " depot," the 
smartly-painted pine houses, the spacious brick hotel, 
the white meeting-house, and the row of youthful and 
leggy trees before it, are exhilarating. They speak of 
progress, and the time when there shall be a city, 
with a His Honor the Mayor, in the place of their 
trim but transient architectural growths. Pardon me, 
if I prefer the pyramids. They seem to me crystals 
formed from a stronger solution of humanity than the 
steeple of the new meeting-house. I may be wrong, 
but the Tiber has a voice for me, as it whispers to the 
piers of the Pons y^lius, even more full of meaning 
than my well-beloved Charles eddying round the piles 
of West Boston Bridge. 



250 THE PROFESSOR 

Then, again, we Yankees are a kind of gypsies, — 
a mechanical and migratory race. A poet wants a 
home. He can dispense with an apple-parer and a 
reaping-machine. I feel this more for others than for 
myself, for the home of my birth and childhood has 
been as yet exempted from the change which has 
invaded almost everything around it. 

— Pardon me a short digression. To what small 
things our memory and our affections attach them- 
selves I remember, when I was a child, that one of 
the girls planted some Star-of-Bethlehem bulbs in the 
southwest corner of our front-yard. Well, I left the 
paternal roof and wandered in other lands, and learned 
to think in the words of strange people. But after 
many years, as I looked on the little front-yard again, 
it occurred to me that there used to be some Stars-of- 
Bethlehem in the southwest corner. The grass was 
tall there, and the blade of the plant is very much 
like grass, only thicker and glossier. Even as Tully 
parted the briers and brambles when he hunted for 
the sphere-containing cylinder that marked the grave 
of Archimedes, so did I comb the grass with my fin- 
gers for my monumental memorial-flower. Nature 
had stored my keepsake tenderly in her bosom ; the 
glossy, faintly streaked blades were there; they are 
there still, though they never flower, darkened as 
they are by the shade of the elms and rooted in 
the matted turf. 

Our hearts are held down to our homes by innumer- 
able fibres, trivial as that I have just recalled ; but 
Gulliver was fixed to the soil, you remember, by pin- 
ning his head a hair at a time. Even a stone with a 
whitish band crossing it, belonging to the pavement of 
the back-yard, insisted on becoming one of the talis- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 25 1 

mans of memory. This intussusception of the ideas 
of inanimate objects, and their faithful storing away 
among the sentiments, are curiously j^refigured in the 
material structure of the thinking centre itself. In 
the very core of the brain, in the part where Des 
Cartes placed the soul, is a small mineral deposit, 
consisting, as I have seen it in the microscope, of 
grape-like masses of crystalline matter. 

But the plants that come up every year in the same 
place, like the Stars-of-Bethlehem, of all the lesser 
objects, give me the liveliest home-feeling. Close to 
our ancient gambrel-roofed house is the dwelling 
of pleasant old Neighbor Walrus. I remember the 
sweet honeysuckle that I saw in flower against the 
wall of his house a few months ago, as long as I re- 
member the sky and stars. That clump of peonies, 
butting their purple heads through the soil every 
spring in just the same circle, and by-and-by unpack- 
ing their hard balls of buds in flowers big enough to 
make a double handful of leaves, has come up in just 
that place. Neighbor Walrus tells me, for more years 
than I have passed on this planet. It is a rare 
privilege in our nomadic state to find the home of 
one's childhood and its immediate neighborhood thus 
unchanged. Many born poets, I am afraid, flower 
poorly in song, or not at all, because they have been 
too often transplanted. 

Then a good many of our race are very hard and 
unimaginative ; — their voices have nothing caressing ; 
their movements are as of machinery without elas- 
ticity or oil. I wish it were fair to print a letter a 
young girl, about the age of our Iris, wrote a short 
time since. "I am*** *** ** *^" she says, and 
tells her whole name outright. Ah ! — said I, when I 



252 THE PROFESSOR 

read that first frank declaration, — you are one of the 
right sort ! — She was. A winged creature among 
close-chpped barn-door fowl. How tired the poor girl 
was of the dull life about her, — the old woman's 
" skeleton hand " at the window opposite, drawing her 
curtains, — " Ma'am — shooing away the hens," — the 
vacuous country eyes staring at her as only country 
eyes can stare, — a routine of mechanical duties, — 
and the souPs half-articulated cry for sympathy, with- 
out an answer ! Yes, — pray for her, and for all such ! 
Faith often cures their longings ; but it is so hard to 
give a soul to heaven that has not first been trained 
in the fullest and sweetest human affections ! Too 
often they fling their hearts away on unworthy objects. 
Too often they pine in a secret discontent, which 
spreads its leaden cloud over the morning of their 
youth. The immeasurable distance between one of 
these delicate natures and the average youths among 
whom is like to be her only choice makes one's heart 
ache. How many women are born too finely organ- 
ized in sense and soul for the highway they must walk 
with feet unshod ! Life is adjusted to the wants of 
the stronger sex. There are plenty of torrents to be 
crossed in its journey ; but their stepping-stones are 
measured by the stride of man, and not of woman. 

Women are more subject than men to atrophy of 
the heart. So says the great medical authority, 
Laennec. Incurable cases of this kind used to find 
their hospitals in convents. We have the disease in 
New England, — but not the hospitals. I don't like 
to think of it. I will not believe our young Iris is 
going to die out in this way. Providence will find 
her some great happiness, or affliction, or duty, — 
and which would be best for her, I cannot tell. One 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 253 

thing is sure : the interest she takes in her little 
neighbor is getting to be more engrossing than ever. 
Something is the matter with him, and she knows it, 
and I think worries herself about it. 

I wonder sometimes how so fragile and distorted a 
frame has kept the fiery spirit that inhabits it so long 
its tenant. He accounts for it in his own way. 

The air of the Old World is good for nothing, — 
he said, one day. — Used up. Sir, — breathed over and 
over again. You must come to this side, Sir, for an 
atmosphere fit to breathe nowadays. Did not worthy 
Mr. Higginson say that a breath of New England's 
air is better than a sup of Old England's ale ? I 
ought to have died when I was a boy, Sir; but I 
could n't die in this Boston air, — and I think I shall 
have to go to New York one of these days, when it 's 
time for me to drop this bundle, — or to New Orleans, 
where they have the yellow fever, — or to Philadel- 
phia, where they have so many doctors. 

This was some time ago ; but of late he has seemed, 
as I have before said, to be ailing. An experienced 
eye, such as I think I may call mine, can tell com- 
monly whether a man is going to die, or not, long 
before he or his friends are alarmed about him. I 
don't like it. 

Iris has told me that the Scottish gift of second- 
sight runs in her family, and that she is afraid she has 
it. Those who are so endowed look upon a well man 
and see a shroud wrapt about him. According to the 
degree to which it covers him, his death will be near 
or more remote. It is an awful faculty ; but science 
gives one too much like it. Luckily for our friends, 
most of us who have the scientific second-sight school 
ourselves not to betray our knowledge by word or look. 



254 THE PROFESSOR 

Day by day, as the Little Gentleman comes to the 
table, it seems to me that the shadow of some ap- 
proaching change falls darker and darker over his 
countenance. Nature is struggling with something, 
and I am afraid she is under in the wrestling-match. 
You do not care much, perhaps, for my particular con- 
jectures as to the nature of his difficulty. I should 
say, however, from the sudden flushes to which he is 
subject, and certain other marks which, as an expert, 
I know how to interpret, that his heart was in trouble ; 
but then he presses his hand to the right side, as if 
there were the centre of his uneasiness. 

When I say difficulty about the heart, I do not mean 
any of those sentimental maladies of that organ which 
figure more largely in romances than on the returns 
which furnish our Bills of Mortality. I mean some 
actual change in the organ itself, which may carry him 
off by slow and painfill degrees, or strike him down 
with one huge pang and only time for a single shriek, 
— as when the shot broke through the brave Captain 
Nolan's breast, at the head of the Light Brigade at 
Balaklava, and with a loud cry he dropped dead from 
his saddle. 

I thought it only fair to say something of what I 
apprehended to some who were entitled to be warned. 
The landlady's face fell when I mentioned my fears. 

Poor man ! — she said. — And will leave the best 
room empty ! Has n't he got any sisters or nieces or 
anybody to see to his things, if he should be took 
away ? Such a sight of cases, full of everything ! 
Never thought of his failin' so suddin. A complica- 
tion of diseases, she expected. Liver-complaint one 
of 'em ? 

After this first involuntary expression of the too 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 255 

natural selfish feelings, (which we must not judge very 
harshly, unless we happen to be poor widows ourselves, 
with children to keep filled, covered, and taught, — 
rents high, — beef eighteen to twenty cents per pound,) 
— after this first squeak of selfishness, followed by a 
brief movement of curiosity, so invariable in mature 
females, as to the nature of the complaint which 
threatens the life of a friend or any person who may 
happen to be mentioned as ill, — the worthy souPs 
better feelings struggled up to the surface, and she 
grieved for the doomed invalid, until a tear or two 
came forth and found their way down a channel worn 
for them since the early days of her widowhood. 

Oh, this dreadful, dreadful business of being the 
prophet of evil ! Of all the trials which those who 
take charge of others' health and lives have to undergo, 
this is the most painful. It is all so plain to the prac- 
tised eye ! — and there is the poor wife, the doting 
mother, who has never suspected anything, or at least 
has clung always to the hope which you are just going 
to wrench away from her !— I must tell Iris that I 
think her poor friend is in a precarious state. She 
seems nearer to him than anybody. 

I did tell her. Whatever emotion it produced, she 
kept a still face, except, perhaps, a little trembling of 
the Hp. — Could I be certain that there was any mor- 
tal complaint? — Why, no, I could not be certain; 
but it looked alarming to me. — He shall have some 
of my life, — she said. 

I suppose this to have been a fancy of hers, of 
a kind of magnetic power she could give out ; — at 
any rate, I cannot help thinking she wills her strength 
away from herself, for she has lost vigor and color 
from that day. I have sometimes thought he gained 



256 THE PROFESSOR 

the force she lost ; but this may have been a whim, 
very probably. 

One day she came suddenly to me, looking deadly 
pale. Her lips moved, as if she were speaking ; but 
I could not at first hear a word. Her hair looked 
strangely, as if lifting itself, and her eyes were full of 
wild light. She sunk upon a chair, and I thought was 
falHng into one of her trances. Something had frozen 
her blood with fear ; I thought, from what she said, 
half audibly, that she believed she had seen a shrouded 
figure. 

That night, at about eleven o'clock, I was sent for 
to see the Little Gentleman, who was taken suddenly 
ill. Bridget, the servant, went before me with a light. 
The doors were both unfastened, and I found myself 
ushered, without hindrance, into the dim light of the 
mysterious apartment I had so longed to enter. 

I found these stanzas in the young girl's book, 
among many others. I give them as characterizing 
the tone of her sadder moments. 



UNDER THE VIOLETS. 

Her hands are cold ; her face is white ; 
No more her pulses come and go ; 

Her eyes are shut to Hfe and Hght ; — 
Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, 
And lay her where the violets blow. 

But not beneath a graven stone, 
To plead for tears with alien eyes ; 

A slender cross of wood alone 
Shall say, that here a maiden lies 
In peace beneath the peaceful skies. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2$ 7 

And gray old trees of hugest limb 

Shall wheel their circling shadows round 

To make the scorching sunlight dim 

That drinks the greenness from the ground, 
And drop their dead leaves on her mound. 

"When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, 
And through their leaves the robins call, 

And, ripening in the autumn sun, 
The acorns and the chestnuts fall, 
Doubt not that she will heed them all. 

For her the morning choir shall sing 

Its matins from the branches high, 
And every minstrel-voice of spring, 

That trills beneath the April sky, 

Shall greet her with its earliest cry. 

When, turning round their dial-track, 
Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, 

Her little mourners, clad in black. 
The crickets, sliding through the grass, 
Shall pipe for her an evening mass. 

At last the rootlets of the trees 

Shall find the prison where she lies, 
And bear the buried dust they seize 

In leaves and blossoms to the skies. 

So may the soul that warmed it rise 1 

If any, born of kindlier blood. 
Should ask, What maiden lies below? 

Say only this : A tender bud, 

That tried to blossom in the snow. 
Lies withered where the violets blow. 



258 THE PROFESSOR 



XI. 

You will know, perhaps, in the course of half an 
hour's reading, what has been haunting my hours of 
sleep and waking for months. I cannot tell, of course, 
whether you are a nervous person or not. If, how- 
ever, you are such a person, — if it is late at night, — 
if all the rest of the household have gone oflf to bed, 
— if the wind is shaking your windows as if a human 
hand were ratthng the sashes, — if your candle or 
lamp is low and will soon burn out, — let me advise 
you to take up some good quiet sleepy volume, or attack 
the " Critical Notices " of the last Quarterly, and leave 
this to be read by daylight, with cheerful voices round, 
and people near by who would hear you, if you slid 
from your chair and came down in a lump on the 
floor. 

I do not say that your heart will beat as mine 
did I am willing to confess, when I entered the dim 
chamber. Did I not tell you that I was sensitive and 
imaginative, and that I had lain awake with thinking 
what were the strange movements and sounds which 
I heard late at night in my little neighbor's apart- 
ment? It had come to that pass that I was truly un- 
able to separate what I had really heard from what I 
had dreamed in those nightmares to which I have been 
subject, as before mentioned. So, when I walked into 
the room, and Bridget, turning back, closed the door 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 259 

and left me alone with its tenant, I do believe you 
could have grated a nutmeg on my skin, such a ^^ goose- 
flesh " shiver ran over it. It was not fear, but what I call 
nervousness, — unreasoning, but irresistible ; as when, 
for instance, one looking at the sun going down says, 
" I will count fifty before it disappears ; " and as he 
goes on and it becomes doubtful whether he will 
reach the number, he gets strangely flurried, and his 
imagination pictures life and death and heaven and 
hell as the issues depending on the completion or 
non-completion of the fifty he is counting. Extreme 
curiosity will excite some people as much as fear, or 
what resembles fear, acts on some other less impres- 
sible natures. 

I may find myself in the midst of strange facts in 
this little conjurer's room. Or, again, there may be 
nothing in this poor invalid's chamber but some old 
furniture, such as they say came over in the May- 
flower. All this is just what I mean to find out while 
I am looking at the Little Gentleman, who has sud- 
denly become my patient. The simplest things turn 
out to be unfathomable mysteries ; the most myste- 
rious appearances prove to be the most commonplace 
objects in disguise. 

I wonder whether the boys that live in Roxbury 
and Dorchester are ever moved to tears or filled with 
silent awe as they look upon the rocks and fragments 
of " puddingstone " abounding in those localities. I 
have my suspicions that those boys "heave a stone " 
or " fire a brickbat," composed of the conglomerate 
just mentioned, without any more tearful or philo- 
sophical contemplations than boys of less favored 
regions expend on the same performance. Yet a 
lump of puddingstone is a thing to look at, to think 



260 THE PROFESSOR 

about, to study over, to dream upon, to go crazy with, 
to beat one's brains out against. Look at that pebble 
in it. From what cliff was it broken? On what 
beach rolled by the waves of what ocean? How and 
when imbedded in soft ooze, which itself became 
stone, and by-and-by was lifted into bald summits 
and steep cliffs, such as you may see on Meeting- 
house-Hill any day — yes, and mark the scratches 
on their faces left when the boulder-carrying glaciers 
planed the surface of the continent with such rough 
tools that the storms have not worn the marks out 
of it with all the polishing of ever so many thousand 
years ? 

Or as you pass a roadside ditch or pool in spring- 
time, take from it any bit of stick or straw which has 
lain undisturbed for a time. Some little worm-shaped 
masses of clear jelly containing specks are fastened to 
the stick: eggs of a sfnall snail-like shell-fish. One 
of these specks magnified proves to be a crystalline 
sphere with an opaque mass in its centre. And while 
you are looking, the opaque mass begins to stir, and 
by-and-by slowly to turn upon its axis like a forming 
planet, — life beginning in the microcosm, as in the 
great worlds of the firmament, with the revolution that 
turns the surface in ceaseless round to the source of 
life and light. 

A pebble and the spawn of a mollusk ! Before you 
have solved their mysteries, this earth where you first 
saw them may be a vitrified slag, or a vapor diffused 
through the planetary spaces. Mysteries are common 
enough, at any rate, whatever the boys in Roxbury 
and Dorchester think of " brickbats " and the spawn 
of creatures that live in roadside puddles. 

But then a great many seeming mysteries are rela- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 26 1 

lively perfectly plain, when we can get at them so as 
to turn them over. How many ghosts that "thick 
men's blood with cold " prove to be shirts hung out to 
dry ! How many mermaids have been made out of 
seals ! How many times have horse-mackerels been 
taken for the sea-serpent ! 

— Let me take the whole matter coolly, while I see 
what is the matter with the patient. That is what I 
say to myself, as I draw a chair to the bedside. — The 
bed is an old-fashioned, dark mahogany four-poster. 
It was never that which made the noise of something 
moving. It is too heavy to be pushed about the room. 

— The Little Gentleman was sitting, bolstered up by 
pillows, with his hands clasped and their united palms 
resting on the back of the head, — one of the three 
or four positions specially affected by persons whose 
breathing is difficult from disease of the heart or other 
causes. 

Sit down, Sir, — he said, — sit down ! I have come 
to the hill Difficulty, Sir, and am fighting my way up. 

— His speech was laborious and interrupted. 

Don't talk, — I said, — except to answer my ques- 
tions. — And I proceeded to " prospect " for the marks 
of some local mischief, which you know is at the bot- 
tom of all these attacks, though we do not always find 
it. I suppose I go to work pretty much like other 
professional folks of my temperament. Thus : — 

Wrist, if you please. — I was on his right side, but 
he presented his left wrist, crossing it over the other. 

— I begin to count, holding watch in left hand. One, 
two, three, four, — What a handsome hand ! — wonder 
if that splendid stone is a carbuncle. — One, two, three, 
four, five, six, seven, — Can't see much, it is so dark, 
except one white object. — One, two, three, four, — 



262 THE PROFESSOR 

Hang it ! eighty or ninety in the minute, I guess. — 
Tongue, if you please. — Tongue is put out. Forget 
to look at it, or, rather, to take any particular notice 
of it ; — but what is that white object, with the long 
arm stretching up as if pointing to the sky, just as 
Vesalius and Spigelius and those old fellows used to 
put their skeletons? I don't think anything of such 
objects, you know ; but what should he have it in his 
chamber for? — As I had found his pulse irregular 
and intermittent, I took out a stethoscope, which is a 
pocket-spyglass for looking into people's chests with 
your ears, and laid it over the place where the heart 
beats. I missed the usual beat of the organ. — How 
is this? — I said, — where is your heart gone to? — He 
took the stethoscope and shifted it across to the right 
side ; there was a displacement of the organ. — I am 
ill-packed, — he said ;^ there was no room for my 
heart in its place as it is with other men. — God help 
him ! 

It is hard to draw the line between scientific curios- 
ity and the desire for the patient's sake to learn all the 
details of his condition. I must look at this patient's 
chest, and thump it and listen to it. For this is a case 
of ectopia cordis^ my boy, — displacement of the heart ; 
and it isn't every day you get a chance to overhaul 
such an interesting malformation. And so I managed 
to do my duty and satisfy my curiosity at the same 
time. The torso was slight and deformed ; the right 
arm attenuated, — the left full, round, and of perfect 
symmetry. It had run away with the life of the other 
limbs, — a common trick enough of Nature's, as I told 
you before. If you see a man with legs withered from 
childhood, keep out of the way of his arms, if you have 
a quarrel with him. He has the strength of four limbs 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 263 

in two ; and if he strikes you, it is an arm-blow plus 
2L kick administered from the shoulder instead of the 
haunch, where it should have started from. 

Still examining him as a patient, I kept my eyes 
about me to search all parts of the chamber, and went 
on with the double process, as before. — Heart hits as 
hard as a fist, — bellow s-soimd over initj'al valves (pro- 
fessional terms you need not attend to). — What the 
dense is that long case for? Got his witch grandmother 
mummied in it? And three big mahogany presses, — 
hey? — A diabolical suspicion came over me which I 
had had once before, — that he might be ^ne of our 
modern alchemists^ — you understand, — make gold, 
you know, or what looks like it, sometimes with the 
head of a king or queen or of Liberty to embellish one 
side of the piece. — Don't I remember hearing him 
shut a door and lock it once? What do you think 
was kept under that lock? Let's have another look 
at his hand, to see if there are any calluses. One can tell 
a man's business, if it is a handicraft, very often by just 
taking a look at his open hand. — Ah ! Four calluses 
at the end of the fingers of the right hand. None on 
those of the left. Ah, ha ! What do those mean? 

All this seems longer in the telling, of course, than 
it was in fact. While I was making these observa- 
tions of the objects around me, I was also forming my 
opinion as to the kind of case with which I had to 
deal. 

There are three wicks, you know, to the lamp of a 
man's life : brain, blood, and breath. Press the brain 
a little, its light goes out, followed by both the others. 
Stop the heart a minute, and out go all three of the 
wicks. Choke the air out of the lungs, and presently 
the fluid ceases to supply the other centres of flame, 



264 THE PROFESSOR 

and all is soon stagnation, cold, and darkness. The 
" tripod of life " a French physiologist called these 
three organs. It is all clear enough which leg of the 
tripod is going to break down here. I could tell you 
exactly what the difficulty is ; — which would be as 
intelligible and amusing as a watchmaker's descrip- 
tion of a diseased timekeeper to a ploughman. It is 
enough to say, that I found just what I expected to, 
and that I think this attack is only the prelude of more 
serious consequences, — which expression means you 
very well know what. 

And now^ the secrets of this life hanging on a thread 
must surely come out. If I have made a mystery 
where there was none, my suspicions will be shamed, 
as they have often been before. If there is anything 
strange, my visits will clear it up. 

I sat an hour or two by the side of the Little Gen- 
tleman's bed, after giving him some henbane to quiet 
his brain, and some foxglove, which an imaginative 
French professor has called the " Opium of the 
Heart." Under their influence he gradually fell into 
an uneasy, half-waking slumber, the body fighting 
hard for every breath, and the mind wandering off in 
strange fancies and old recollections, which escaped 
from his lips in broken sentences. 

— The last of 'em, — he said, — the last of 'em all, 
— thank God ! And the grave he lies in will look just 
as well as if he had been straight. Dig it deep, old 
Martin, dig it deep, — and let it be as long as other 
folks' graves. And mind you get the sods flat, old 
man, — flat as ever a straight-backed young fellow was 
laid under. And then, with a good tall slab at the 
head, and a footstone six foot away from it, it '11 look 
just as if there was a man underneath. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 265 

A man ! Who said he was a man? No more men 
of that pattern to bear his name ! — Used to be a good- 
looking set enough. — Where 's all the manhood and 
womanhood gone to since his great-grandfather was 
the strongest man that sailed out of the town of 
Boston, and poor Leah there the handsomest woman 
in Essex, if she was a witch? 

— Give me some light, — he said, — more light. — I 
want to see the picture. 

He had started either from a dream or a wander- 
ing reverie. I was not unwilling to have more light 
in the apartment, and presently had lighted an astral 
lamp that stood on a table. — He pointed to a portrait 
hanging against the wall. — Look at her, — he said, — 
look at her ! Was n't that a pretty neck to slip a hang- 
man's noose over? 

The portrait was of a young woman, something 
more than twenty years old, perhaps. There were 
few pictures of any merit painted in New England 
before the time of Smibert, and I am at a loss to know 
what artist could have taken this half-length, which 
was evidently from life. It was somewhat stiff and 
flat, but the grace of the figure and the sweetness of 
the expression reminded me of the angels of the early 
Florentine painters. She must have been of some 
consideration, for she was dressed in paduasoy and 
lace with hanging sleeves, and the old carved frame 
showed how the picture had been prized by its former 
owners. A proud eye she had, with all her sweetness. 
— I think it was that which hanged her, as his strong 
arm hanged Minister George Burroughs ; — but it may 
have been a httle mole on one cheek, which the artist 
had just hinted as a beauty rather than a deformity. 
You know, I suppose, that nursling imps addict them- 



266 THE PROFESSOR 

selves, after the fashion of young opossums, to these 
little excrescences. " Witch-marks " were good evi- 
dence that a young woman was one of the DeviPs wet- 
nurses ; — I should like to have seen you make fun of 
them in those days ! — Then she had a brooch in her 
bodice, that might have been taken for some devilish 
amulet or other; and she wore a ring upon one of her 
fingers, with a red stone in it, that flamed as if the 
painter had dipped his pencil in fire ; — who knows 
but that it was given her by a midnight suitor fresh 
from that fierce element, and licensed for a season to 
leave his couch of flame to tempt the unsanctified 
hearts of earthly maidens and brand their cheeks with 
the print of his scorching kisses ? 

She and I, — he said, as he looked steadfastly at 
the canvas, — she and I are the last of 'em. — She will 
stay, and I shall go. They never painted me, — ex- 
cept when the boys used to make pictures of me with 
chalk on the board-fences. They said the doctors 
would want my skeleton when I was dead. — You are 
my friend, if you are a doctor, — a'n't you? 

I just gave him my hand. I had not the heart to 
speak. 

I want to lie still, — he said, — after I am put to bed 
upon the hill yonder. Can't you have a great stone 
laid over me, as they did over the first settlers in the 
old burying-ground at Dorchester, so as to keep the 
wolves from digging them up? I never slept easy 
over the sod ; — I should like to lie quiet under it. 
And besides, — he said, in a kind of scared whisper, 
— I don't want to have my bones stared at, as my 
body has been. I don't doubt I was a remarkable 
case ; but, for God's sake, oh, for God's sake, don't let 
'em make a show of the cage I have been shut up 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 26/ 

in and looked through the bars of for so many 
years ! 

I have heard it said that the art of healing makes 
men hardhearted and indifferent to human suffering. 
I am willing to own that there is often a professional 
hardness in surgeons, just as there is in theologians, 
— only much less in degree than in these last. It 
does not commonly improve the sympathies of a man 
to be in the habit of thrusting knives into his fellow- 
creatures and burning them with red-hot irons, any 
more than it improves them to hold the blinding-white 
cautery of Gehenna by its cool handle and score and 
crisp young souls with it until they are scorched into 
the belief of — Transubstantiation or the Immaculate 
Conception. And, to say the plain truth, I think 
there are a good many coarse people in both callings. 
A delicate nature will not commonly choose a pursuit 
which implies the habitual infliction of suffering, so 
readily as some gentler office. Yet, while I am writ- 
ing this paragraph, there passes by my window, on 
his daily errand of duty, not seeing me, though I 
catch a glimpse of his manly features through the 
oval glass of his chaise, as he rides by, a surgeon of 
skill and standing, so friendly, so modest, so tender- 
hearted in all his ways, that, if he. had not approved 
himself at once adroit and firm, one would have said 
he was of too kindly a mould to be the minister of 
pain, even if it were saving pain. 

You may be sure that some men, even among those 
who have chosen the task of pruning their fellow- 
creatures, grow more and more thoughtful and truly 
compassionate in the midst of their cruel experience. 
They become less nervous, but more sympathetic. 
They have a truer sensibility for others' pain, the 



268 THE PROFESSOR 

more they study pain and disease in the light of sci- 
ence. I have said this without claiming any special 
growth in humanity for myself, though I do hope I 
grow tenderer in my feelings as I grow older. At 
any rate, this was not a time in which professional 
habits could keep down certain instincts of older date 
than these. 

This poor little man's appeal to my humanity 
against the supposed rapacity of Science, which he 
feared would have her " specimen," if his ghost should 
walk restlessly a thousand years, waiting for his bones 
to be laid in the dust, touched my heart. But I felt 
bound to speak cheerily. 

— We won't die yet awhile, if we can help it, — I 
said, — and I trust we can help it. But don't be 
afraid ; if I live longest, I will see that your resting- 
place is kept sacred till the dandelions and buttercups 
blow over you. 

He seemed to have got his wits together by this 
time, and to have a vague consciousness that he might 
have been saying more than he meant for anybody's 
ears. — I have been talking a Httle wild, Sir, eh ? — 
he said. — There is a great buzzing in my head with 
those drops of yours, and I doubt if my tongue has 
not been a little looser than I would have it, Sir. But 
I don't much want to live. Sir ; that 's the truth of the 
matter; and it does rather please me to think that 
fifty years from now nobody will know that the place 
where I lie does n't hold as stout and straight a man 
as the best of 'em that stretch out as if they were 
proud of the room they take. You may get me well, 
if you can, Sir, if you think it worth while to try ; but 
I tell you there has been no time for this many a year 
when the smell of fresh earth was not sweeter to me 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 269 

than all the flowers that grow out of it. There's no 
anodyne like your good clean gravel, Sir. But if you 
can keep me about awhile, and it amuses you to try, 
you may show your skill upon me, if you like. There 
is a pleasure or two that I love the daylight for, and I 
think the night is not far off, at best. — I believe I shall 
sleep now ; you may leave me, and come, if you like, in 
the morning. 

Before I passed out, I took one more glance round 
the apartment. The beautiful face of the portrait 
looked at me, as portraits often do, with a frightful 
kind of intelligence in its eyes. The drapery fluttered 
on the still outstretched arm of the tall object near 
the window ; — a crack of this was open, no doubt, 
and some breath of wind stirred the hanging folds. 
In my excited state, I seemed to see something omi- 
nous in that arm pointing to the heavens. I thought 
of the figures in the Dance of Death at Basle, and 
that other on the panels of the covered Bridge at 
Lucerne ; and it seemed to me that the grim mask 
who mingles with every crowd and glides over every 
threshold was pointing the sick man to his far home, 
and would soon stretch out his bony hand and lead 
him or drag him on the unmeasured journey towards 
it. 

The fancy had possession of me, and I shivered 
again as when I first entered the chamber. The pic- 
ture and the shrouded shape; I saw only these two 
objects. They were enough. The house was deadly 
still, and the night-wind, blowing through an open 
window, struck me as from a field of ice, at the moment 
I passed into the creaking corridor. As I turned into 
the common passage, a white figure, holding a lamp, 
stood full before me. I thought at first it was one of 



270 



THE PROFESSOR 



those images made to stand in niches and hold a 
light in their hands. But the illusion was momentary, 
and my eyes speedily recovered from the shock of the 
bright flame and snowy drapery to see that the figure 
was a breathing one. It was Iris, in one of her statue- 
trances. She had come down, whether sleeping or 
waking, I knew not at first, led by an instinct that told 
her she was wanted, — or, possibly, having overheard 
and interpreted the sound of our movements, — or, it 
may be, having learned from the servant that there 
was trouble which might ask for a woman''s hand. I 
sometimes think women have a sixth sense, which 
tells them that others, whom they cannot see or hear, 
are in suffering. How surely we find them at the bed- 
side of the dying ! How strongly does Nature plead 
for them, that we should draw our first breath in their 
arms, as we sigh away our last upon their faithful 
breasts! 

With white, bare feet, her hair loosely knotted, 
dressed as the starlight knew her, and the morning 
when she rose from slumber, save that she had twisted 
a scarf round her long dress, she stood still as a stone 
before me, holding in one hand a lighted coil of wax- 
taper, and in the other a silver goblet. I held my 
own lamp close to her, as if she had been a figure of 
marble, and she did not stir. There was no breach 
of propriety then, to scare the Poor Relation with and 
breed scandal out of. She had been " warned in a 
dream," doubtless suggested by her waking knowledge 
and the sounds which had reached her exalted sense. 
There was nothing more natural than that she should 
have risen and girdled her waist, and lighted her 
taper, and found the silver goblet with " Ex dono pii- 
pillorum " on it, from which she had taken her milk 




She stood stiil as a stone before 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2/1 

and possets through all her childish years, and so gone 
blindly out to find her place at the bedside, — a Sister 
of Charity without the cap and rosary ; nay, unknow- 
ing whither her feet were leading her, and with wide, 
blank eyes seeing nothing but the vision that beckoned 
her along. — Well, I must wake her from her slumber 
or trance. — I called her name, but she did not heed 
my voice. 

The Devil put it into my head that I would kiss 
one handsome young girl before I died, and now was 
my chance. She never would know it, and I should 
carry the remembrance of it with me into the grave, 
and a rose perhaps grow out of my dust, as a brier did 
out of Lord LovePs, in memory of that immortal mo- 
ment ! Would it wake her from her trance ? and 
would she see me in the flush of my stolen triumph, 
and hate and despise me ever after '^. Or should I 
carry off my trophy undetected, and always from that 
time say to myself, when I looked upon her in the 
glory of youth and the splendor of beauty, " My lips 
have touched those roses and made their sweetness 
mine forever"? You think my cheek was flushed, 
perhaps, and my eyes were glittering with this mid- 
night flash of opportunity. On the contrary, I believe 
I was pale, very pale, and I know that I trembled. 
Ah, it is the pale passions that are the fiercest, — it is 
the violence of the chill that gives the measure of the 
fever ! The fighting-boy of our school always turned 
white when he went out to a pitched battle with the 
bully of some neighboring village ; but we knew what 
his bloodless cheeks meant, — the blood was all in his 
stout heart, — he was a slight boy, and there was not 
enough ^to redden his face and fill his heart both at 
once. 



2/2 THE PROFESSOR 

Perhaps it is making a good deal of a slight matter, 
to tell the internal conflicts in the heart of a quiet 
person something more than juvenile and something 
less than senile, as to whether he should be guilty of 
an impropriety, and, if he were, whether he would get 
caught in his indiscretion. And yet the memory of 
the kiss that Margaret of Scotland gave to Alain 
Chartier has lasted four hundred years, and put it into 
the head of many an ill-favored poet, whether Vic- 
toria or Eugenie would do as much by him, if she 
happened to pass him when he was asleep. And 
have we ever forgotten that the fresh cheek of the 
young John Milton tingled under the lips of some 
high-born Italian beauty, who, I believe, did not think 
to leave her card by the side of the slumbering youth, 
but has bequeathed the memory of her pretty deed to 
all coming time ? The sound of a kiss is not so 
loud as that of a cannon, but its echo' lasts a deal 
longer. 

There is one disadvantage which the man of philo- 
sophical habits of mind suffers, as compared with the 
man of action. While he is taking an enlarged and 
rational view of the matter before him, he lets his 
chance shp through his fingers. Iris woke up, of her 
own accord, before I had made up my mind what I 
was going to do about it. 

When I remember how charmingly she looked, I 
don't blame myself at all for being tempted ; but if I 
had been fool enough to yield to the impulse, I should 
certainly have been ashamed to tell of it. She did 
not know what to make of it, finding herself there 
alone, in such guise, and me staring at her. She 
looked down at her white robe and bare feet, and col- 
ored, — then at the goblet she held in her hand, — 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2/3 

then at the taper ; and at last her thoughts seemed 
to clear up. 

I know it all, — she said. — He is going to die, and 
I must go, and sit by him. Nobody will care for him 
as I shall, and I have nobody else to care for. 

I assured her that nothing was needed for him that 
night but rest, and persuaded her that the excitement 
of her presence could only do harm. Let him sleep, 
and he would very probably awake better in the morn- 
ing. There was nothing to be said, for I spoke with 
authority ; and the young girl glided away with noise- 
less step and sought her own chamber. 

The tremor passed away from my limbs, and the 
blood began to burn in my cheeks. The beautiful 
image which had so bewitched me faded gradually from 
my imagination, and I returned to the still perplexing 
mysteries of my little neighbor's chamber. All was 
still there now. No plaintive sounds, no monotonous 
murmurs, no shutting of windows and doors at strange 
hours, as if something or somebody were coming in 
or going out, or there was something to be hidden 
in those dark mahogany presses. Is there an inner 
apartment that I have not seen? The way in which 
the house is built might admit of it. As I thought it 
over, I at once imagined a Bluebeard's chamber. 
Suppose, for instance, that the narrow bookshelves to 
the right are really only a masked door, such as we 
remember leading to the private study of one of our 
most distinguished townsmen, who loved to steal 
away from his stately library to that little silent cell. 
If this were lighted from above, a person or per- 
sons might pass their days there without attracting 
attention from the household, and wander where they 
pleased at night, — to Copp's-Hill burial-ground, if 



274 '^HE PROFESSOR 

they liked, — I said to myself, laughing, and pulling 
the bed-clothes over my head. There is no logic in 
superstitious fancies any more than in dreams. A 
she-ghost would n't want an inner chamber to herself. 
A live woman, with a valuable soprano voice, would n't 
start off at night to sprain her ankles over the old 
graves of the North-End cemetery. 

It is all very easy for you, middle-aged reader, sitting 
over this page in the broad daylight, to call me by all 
manner of asinine and anserine unchristian names, be- 
cause I had these fancies running through'my head. I 
don't care much for your abuse. The question is not, 
what it is reasonable for a man to think about, but 
what he actually does think about, in the dark, and 
when he is alone, and his whole body seems but 
one great nerve of hearing, and he sees the phospho- 
rescent flashes of his own eyeballs as they turn sud- 
denly in the direction of the last strange noise, — 
what he actually does think about, as he lies and re- 
calls all the wild stories his head is full of, his fancy 
hinting the most alarming conjectures to account for 
the simplest facts about him, his common-sense laugh- 
ing them to scorn the next minute, but his mind still 
returning to them, under one shape or another, until 
he gets very nervous and foolish, and remembers how 
pleasant it used to be to have his mother come and 
tuck him up and go and sit within call, so that she 
could hear him at any minute, if he got very much 
scared and wanted her. Old babies that we are ! 

Daylight will clear up all that lamp-light has left 
doubtful. I longed for the morning to come, for I 
was more curious than ever. So, between my fancies 
and anticipations, I had but a poor night of it, and 
came down tired to the breakfast-table. My visit 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 275 

was not to be made until after this morning hour ; — 
there was nothing urgent, so the servant was ordered 
to tell me. 

It was the first breakfast at which the high chair at 
the side of Iris had been unoccupied. — You might 
jest as well take away that chair, — said our landlady, 
— he '11 never want it again. He acts like a man that 's 
struck with death, 'n' I don't believe he'll ever come 
out of his chamber till he's laid out and brought 
down a corpse. — These good women do put things so 
plainly ! There were two or three words in her short 
remark that always sober people, and suggest silence 
or brief moral reflections. 

— Life is dreadful uncerting, — said the Poor Re- 
lation,— and pulled in her social tentacles to concen- 
trate her thoughts on this fact of human history. 

— If there was anything a fellah could do, — said 
the young man John, so called, — a fellah 'd like the 
chance o' helpin' a little cripple like that. He looks 
as if he could n't turn over any handier than a turtle 
that's laid on his back ; and I guess there a'n't many 
people that know how to lift better than I do. Ask 
him if he don't want any watchers. I don't mind 
settin' up any more 'n' a cat-owl. I was up all night 
twice last month. 

[My private opinion is, that there was no small 
amount of punch absorbed on those two occasions, 
which I think I heard of at the time ; — but the offer 
is a kind one, and it is n't fair to question how he 
would like sitting up without the punch and the com- 
pany and the songs and smoking. He means what 
he says, and it would be a more considerable achieve- 
ment for him to sit quietly all night by a sick man 
than for a good many other people. I tell you this 



2/6 THE PROFESSOR 

odd thing : there are a good many persons, who, 
through the habit of making other folks uncomfortable, 
by finding fault with all their cheerful enjoyments, at 
last get up a kind of hostility to comfort in general, 
even in their own persons. The correlative to loving 
our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we 
hate our neighbors. Look at old misers ; first they 
starve their dependants, and then themselves. So I 
think it more for a lively young fellow to be ready to 
play nurse than for one of those useful but forlorn 
martyrs who have taken a spite against themselves 
and love to gratify it by fasting and watching.] 

— The time came at last for me to make my visit. 
i found Iris sitting by the Little Gentleman's pillow. 
To my disappointment, the room was darkened. He 
did not like the light, and would have the shutters 
kept nearly closed. It was good enough for me; — 
what business had I to be indulging, my curiosity, 
when I had nothing to do but to exercise such skill 
as I possessed for the benefit of my patient? There 
was not much to be said or done in such a case ; but 
I spoke as encouragingly as I could, as I think we are 
always bound to do. He did not seem to pay any very 
anxious attention, but the poor girl listened as if her 
own life and more than her own hfe were depending 
on the words I uttered. She followed me out of the 
room, when I had got through my visit. 

How long ? — she said. 

Uncertain. Any time; to-day, — next week, — 
next month, — I answered. — One of those cases 
where the issue is not doubtful, but may be sudden 
or slow. 

The women of the house were kind, as women 
always are in trouble. But Iris pretended that no- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2// 

body could spare the time as well as she, and kept 
her place, hour after hour, until the landlady insisted 
that she 'd be killin' herself, if she begun at that rate, 
'n' haf to give up, if she did n't want to be clean beat 
out in less 'n a week. 

At the table we were graver than common. The 
high chair was set back against the wall, and a gap 
left between that of the young girl and her nearest 
neighbor's on the right. But the next morning, to 
our great surprise, that good-looking young Mary- 
lander had very quietly moved his own chair to the 
vacant place. I thought he was creeping down that 
way, but I was not prepared for a leap spanning such 
a tremendous parenthesis of boarders as this change 
of position included. There was no denying that the 
youth and maiden were a handsome pair, as they sat 
side by side. But whatever the young girl may have 
thought of her new neighbor, she never seemed for a 
moment to forget the poor little friend who had been 
taken from her side. There are women, and even 
girls, with whom it is of no use to talk. One might 
as well reason with a bee as to the form of his cell, or 
with an oriole as to the construction of his swinging 
nest, as try to stir these creatures from their own way 
of doing their own work. It was not a question with 
Iris, whether she was entitled by any sjDecial relation 
or by the fitness of things to play the part of a nurse. 
She was a wilful creature that must have her way in 
this matter. And it so proved that it called for much 
patience and long endurance to carry tlirough the 
duties, say rather the kind offices, the painful pleas- 
ures, that she had chosen as her share in the house- 
hold where accident had thrown her. She had that 
genius of ministration which is the special province of 



278 THE PROFESSOR 

certain women, marked even among their helpful 
sisters by a soft, low voice, a quiet footfall, a light 
hand, a cheering smile, and a ready self-surrender to 
the objects of their care, which such trifles as their 
own food, sleep, or habits of any kind never presume 
to interfere with. 

Day after day, and too often through the long 
watches of the night, she kept her place by the pillow. 

— That girl will kill herself over me. Sir, — said the 
poor Little Gentleman to me, one day, — she will kill 
herself. Sir, if you don't call in all the resources of 
your art to get me off as soon as may be. I shall 
wear her out. Sir, with sitting in this close chamber 
and watching when she ouglit to be sleeping, if you 
leave me to the care of Nature without dosing me. 

This was rather strange pleasantry, under the cir- 
cumstances. But there are certain persons whose ex- 
istence is so out of parallel with the larger laws in the 
midst of which it is moving, that life becomes to them 
as death and death as life. — How am I getting along? 

— he said, another morning. He lifted his shrivelled 
hand, with the death's-head ring on it, and looked at 
it with a sad sort of complacency. By this one move- 
ment, which I have seen repeatedly of late, I know 
that his thoughts have gone before to another condi- 
tion, and that he is, as it were, looking back on the 
infirmities of the body as accidents of the past. For, 
when he was well, one might see him often looking at 
the handsome hand with the flaming jewel on one of 
its fingers. The single well-shaped limb was the 
source of that pleasure which in some form or other 
Nature almost always grants to her least richly en- 
dowed children. Handsome hair, eyes, complexion, 
feature, form, hand, foot, pleasant voice, strength, 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 279 

grace, agility, intelligence, — how few there are that 
have not just enough of one at least of these gifts to 
show them that the good Mother, busy with her mill- 
ions of children, has not quite forgotten them! But 
now he was thinking of that other state, where, free 
from all mortal impediments, the memory of his sor- 
rowful burden should be only as that of the case he 
has shed to the insect whose " deep-damasked wings " 
beat off the golden dust of the lily-anthers, as he flut- 
ters in the ecstasy of his new life over their full-blown 
summer glories. 

No human being can rest for any time in a state of 
equilibrium, where the desire to live and that to depart 
just balance each other. If one has a house, which he 
has lived and always means to live in, he pleases him- 
self with the thought of all the conveniences it offers 
him, and thinks little of its wants and imperfections. 
But once having made up his mind to move to a better, 
every incommodity starts out upon him, until the very 
ground-plan of it seems to have changed in his mind, 
and his thoughts and affections, each one of them pack- 
ing up its little bundle of circumstances, have quitted 
their several chambers and nooks and migrated to 
the new home, long before its apartments are ready to 
receive their bodily tenant. It is so with the body. 
Most persons have died before they expire, — died to 
all earthly longings, so that the last breath is only, as 
it were, the locking of the door of the already deserted 
mansion. The fact of the tranquillity with which the 
great majority of dying persons await this locking of 
those gates of life through which its airy angels have 
been going and coming, from the moment of the first 
cry, is familiar to those who have been often called 
upon to witness the last period of life. Almost always 



280 THE PROFESSOR 

there is a preparation made by Nature for unearthing a 
soul, just as on the smaller scale there is for the removal 
of a milk-tooth. The roots which hold human life to 
earth are absorbed before it is lifted from its place. 
Some of the dying are weary and want rest, the idea 
of which is almost inseparable in the universal mind 
from death. Some are in pain, and want to be rid of 
it, even though the anodyne be dropped, as in the 
legend, from the sword of the Death-Angel. Some 
are stupid, mercifully narcotized that they may go to 
sleep without long tossing about. And some are strong 
in faith and hope, so that, as they draw near the next 
world, they would fain hurry toward it, as the caravan 
moves faster over the sands when the foremost travel- 
lers send word along the file that water is in sight. 
Though each little party that follows in a foot-track of 
its own will have it that the water to whicli others think 
they are hastening is a mirage, not the less has it been 
true in all ages and for human beings of every creed 
which recognized a future, that those who have fallen 
worn out by their march through the Desert have 
dreamed at least of a River of Life, and thought they 
heard its murmurs as they lay dying. 

The change from the clinging to the present to the 
welcoming of the future comes very soon, for the most 
part after all hope of life is extinguished, provided this 
be left in good degree to Nature, and not insolently 
and cruelly forced upon those who are attacked by ill- 
ness, on the strength of that odious foreknowledge 
often imparted by science, before the white fruit whose 
core is ashes, and which we call death^ has set beneath 
the pallid and drooping flower of sickness. There is 
a singular sagacity very often shown in a patient's esti- 
mate of his own vital force. His physician knows the 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 2*8 1 



state of his material frame well enough, perhaps, — 
that this or that organ is more or less impaired or dis- 
integrated ; but the patient has a sense that he can 
hold out so much longer, — sometimes that he must 
and will live for a while, though by the logic of disease 
he ought to die without any delay. 

The Little Gentleman continued to fail, until it be- 
came plain that his remaining days were few. I told 
the household what to expect. There was a good deal 
of kind feeling expressed among the boarders, in vari- 
ous modes, according to their characters and style of 
sympathy. The landlady was urgent that he should 
try a certain nostrum which had saved somebody's life 
in jest sech a case. The Poor Relation wanted me to 
carry, as from her, a copy of " Allein's Alarm," etc. 
I objected to the title, reminding her that it offended 
people of old, so that more than twice as many of the 
book were sold when they changed the name to " A 
Sure Guide to Heaven." The good old gentleman 
whom I have mentioned before has come to the time 
of life when many old men cry easily, and forget their 
tears as children do. — He was a worthy gentleman, 

— he said, — a very worthy gentleman, but unfortunate, 

— very unfortunate. Sadly deformed about the spine 
and the feet. Had an impression that the late Lord 
Byron had some malformation of this kind. Had 
heerd there was something the matter with the ankle- 
j'ints of that nobleman, but he was a man of talents. 
This gentleman seemed to be a man of talents. Could 
not always agree with his statements, — thought he 
was a little over-partial to this city, and had some free 
opinions ; but was sorry to lose him, — and if — there 

was anything — he — could . In the midst 

of these kind expressions, the gentleman with the dia- 



2^ THE PROFESSOR 

mond, the Koh-i-noor, as we called him, asked, in a 
very unpleasant sort of way, how the old boy was likely 
to cut up, — meaning what money our friend was going 
to leave behind. 

The young fellow John spoke up, to the effect that 
this was a diabolish snobby question, when a man 
was dying and not dead. — To this the Koh-i-noor 
replied, by asking if the other meant to insult him. — 
Whereto the young man John rejoined that he had 
no particular intentions one way or t' other. — The 
Koh-i-noor then suggested the young man's stepping 
out into the yard, that he, the speaker, might " slap 
his chops." — Let 'em alone, — said young Maryland, 
— it '11 soon be over, and they won't hurt each other 
much. — So they went out. 

The Koh-i-noor entertained the very common idea, 
that, when one quarrels with another, the simple 
thing to do is to knock the man down, and there is 
the end of it. Now those who have watched such 
encounters are aware of two things : first, that it is 
not so easy to knock a man down as it is to talk about 
it ; secondly, that, if you do happen to knock a man 
down, there is a very good chance that he will be 
angry, and get up and give you a thrashing. 

So the Koh-i-noor thought he would begin, as soon 
as they got into the yard, by knocking his man down, 
and with this intention swung his arm round after the 
fashion of rustics and those unskilled in the noble art, 
expecting the young fellow John to drop when his fist, 
having completed a quarter of a circle, should come in 
contact with the side of that young man's head. Un- 
fortunately for this theory, it happens that a blow 
struck out straight is much shorter, and therefore as 
much quicker than the rustic's swinging blow, as the 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 283 

radius is shorter than the quarter of a circle. The 
mathematical and mechanical corollary was, that the 
Koh-i-noor felt something hard bring up suddenly 
against his right eye, which something he could have 
sworn was a paving-stone, judging by his sensations ; 
and as this threw his person somewhat backwards, 
and the young man John jerked his own head back a 
little, the swinging blow had nothing to stop it ; and 
as the Jewel staggered between the hit he got and the 
blow he missed, he tripped and " went to grass," so 
far as the back-yard of our boarding-house was pro- 
vided with that vegetable. It was a signal illustration 
of that fatal mistake, so frequent in young and ardent 
natures with inconspicuous calves and negative pec- 
torals, that they can settle most little quarrels on the 
spot by "knocking the man down." 

We are in the habit of handling our faces so care- 
fully, that a heavy blow, taking effect on that portion 
of the surface, produces a most unpleasant surprise, 
which is accompanied with odd sensations, as of see- 
ing sparks, and a kind of electrical or ozone-like odor, 
half-sulphurous in character, and which has given rise 
to a very vulgar and profane threat sometimes heard 
from the lips of bullies. A person not used to pugil- 
istic gestures does not instantly recover from this 
surprise. The Koh-i-noor, exasperated by his failure, 
and still a little confused by the smart hit he had 
received, but furious, and confident of victory over a 
young fellow a good deal lighter than himself, made 
a desperate rush to bear down all before him and 
finish the contest at once. That is the way all angry 
greenhorns and incompetent persons attempt to settle 
matters. It does n't do, if the other fellow is only 
cool, moderately quick, and has a very little science. 



284 THE PROFESSOR 

It did n't do this time ; for, as the assailant rushed in 
with his arms flying everywhere, like the vans of a 
windmill, he ran a prominent feature of his face 
against a fist which was travelling in the other direc- 
tion, and immediately after struck the knuckles of the 
young man's other fist a severe blow with the part of 
his person known as the epigastrium to one branch 
of science and the h'ead-basket to another. This 
second round closed the battle. The Koh-i-noor had 
got enough, which in such cases is more than as good 
as a feast. The young fellow asked him if he was 
satisfied, and held out his hand. But the other 
sulked, and muttered something about revenge. — 
Jest as y' like, — said the young man John. — Clap a 
slice o' raw beefsteak on to that mouse o' yours V 't'll 
take down the swellin'. {Mouse is a technical term 
for a bluish, oblong, rounded elevation occasioned by 
running one's forehead or eyebrow against another's 
knuckles.) The young fellow was particularly pleased 
that he had had an opportunity of trying his profi- 
ciency in the art of self-defence without the gloves. 
The Koh-i-noor did not favor us with his company 
for a day or two, being confined to his chamber it was 
said, by a slight feverish attack. He was chop-fallen 
always after this, and got negligent in his person. 
The impression must have been a deep one ; for it 
was observed, that, when he came down again, his 
moustache and whiskers had turned visibly white — 
aboiit the roots. In short, it disgraced him, and ren- 
dered still more conspicuous a tendency to drink- 
ing, of which he had been for some time suspected. 
This, and the disgust which a young lady naturally 
feels at hearing that her lover has been " licked 
by a fellah not half his size," induced the landlady's 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 285 

daughter to take that decided step which produced 
a change in the programme of her career I may here- 
after ahude to. 

I never thought he would come to good, when I 
heard him attempting to sneer at an unoffending city 
so respectable as Boston. After a man begins to 
attack the State-House, when he gets bitter about the 
Frog-Pond, you may be sure there is not much left of 
him. Poor Edgar Poe died in the hospital soon after 
he got into this way of talking ; and so sure as you 
find an unfortunate fellow reduced to this pass you 
had better begin praying for him, and stop lending 
him money, for he is on his last legs. Remember 
poor Edgar ! He is dead and gone ; but the State- 
House has its cupola fresh-gilded, and the Frog-Pond 
has got a fountain that squirts up a hundred feet into 
the air and glorifies that humble sheet with a fine dis- 
play of provincial rainbows. 

— I cannot fulfil my promise in this number. I 
expected to gratify your curiosity, if you have become 
at all interested in these puzzles, doubts, fancies, 
whims, or whatever you choose to call them, of mine. 
Next month you shall hear all about it. 

— It was evening, and I was going to the sick- 
chamber. As I paused at the door before entering, I 
heard a sweet voice singing. It was not the wild 
melody I had sometimes heard at midnight : — no, 
this was the voice of Iris, and I could distinguish 
every word. I had seen the verses in her book ; the 
melody was new to me. Let me finish my page with 
them : — 



286 THE PROFESSOR 



HYMN OF TRUST. 

O Love Divine, that stooped to share 
Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear. 

On Thee we cast each earthborn care, 
We smile at pain while Thou art near ! 

Though long the weary way we tread. 
And sorrow crown each lingering year, 

No path we shun, no darkness dread, 
Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near ! 

When drooping pleasure turns to grief, 
And trembling faith is changed to fear, 

The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf 
Shall softly tell us. Thou art near ! 

On Thee we fling our burdening woe, 

O Love Divine, forever dear. 
Content to suffer, while we know. 

Living and dying, Thou art near ! 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE, 28/ 



XII. 



A YOUNG fellow, born of good stock, in one of the 
more thoroughly civilized portions of these United 
States of America, bred in good principles, inheriting 
a social position which makes him at his ease every- 
where, means sufficient to educate him thoroughly 
without taking away the stimulus to vigorous exertion, 
and with a good opening in some honorable path of 
labor, is the finest sight our private satellite has had 
the opportunity of inspecting on the planet to which 
she belongs. In some respects it was better to be a 
young Greek. If we may trust the old marbles, — 
my friend with his arm stretched over my head, above 
there, (in plaster of Paris,) or the discobolus, whom 
one may see at the principal sculpture gallery of this 
metropolis, — those Greek young men were of supreme 
beauty. Their close curls, their elegantly set heads, 
column-like necks, straight noses, short, curled lips, 
firm chins, deep chests, light flanks, large muscles, 
small joints, were finer than anything we ever see. It 
may well be questioned whether the human shape will 
ever present itself again in a race of such perfect sym- 
metry. But the life of the youthful Greek was local, 
not planetary, like that of the young American. He 
had a string of legends, in place of our Gospels. He 
had no printed books, no newspaper, no steam cara- 
vans, no forks, no soap, none of the thousand cheap 



288 THE PROFESSOR 

conveniences which have become matters of necessity 
to our modern civilization. Above all things, if he 
aspired to know as well as to enjoy, he found knowl- 
edge not diffused everywhere about him, so that a day's 
labor would buy him more wisdom than a year could 
master, but held in private hands, hoarded in precious 
manuscripts, to be sought for only as gold is sought in 
narrow fissures and in the beds of brawling streams. 
Never, since man came into this atmosphere of oxy- 
gen and azote, was there anything like the condition 
of the young American of the nineteenth century. 
Having in possession or in prospect the best part of 
half a world, with all its climates and soils to choose 
from ; equipped with wings of fire and smoke that fly 
with him day and night, so that he counts his journey 
not in miles but in degrees, and sees the seasons 
change as the wild fowl sees them in his annual flights ; 
with huge leviathans always ready to take him on their 
broad backs and push behind them with their pectoral 
or caudal fins the waters that seam the continent or 
separate the hemispheres ; heir of all old civilizations, 
founder of that new one which, if all the prophecies 
of the human heart are not lies, is to be the noblest, 
as it is the last ; isolated in space from the races that 
are governed by dynasties whose divine right grows out 
of human wrong, yet knit into the most absolute soli- 
darity with mankind of all times and places by the one 
great thought he inherits as his national birthright ; 
free to form and express his opinions on almost every 
subject, and assured that he will soon acquire the last 
franchise which men withhold from man, — that of 
stating the laws of his spiritual being and the beliefs 
he accepts without hindrance except from clearer 
views of truth, — he seems to want nothing for a large, 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 289 

wholesome, noble, beneficent life. In fact, the chief 
danger is that he will think the whole planet is made 
for him, and forget that there are some possibilities 
left in the debris of the old-world civilization which 
deserve a certain respectful consideration at his 
hands. 

The combing and clipping of this shaggy wild con- 
tinent are in some measure done for him by those 
who have gone before. Society has subdivided itself 
enough to have a place for every form of talent. 
Thus, if a man show the least sign of ability as a 
sculptor or a painter, for instance, he finds the means 
of education and a demand for his services. Even a 
man who knows nothing but science will be provided 
for, if he does not think it necessary to hang about 
his birthplace all his days, — which is a most un- 
American weakness. The apron-strings of an Ameri- 
can mother are made of India-rubber. Her boy 
belongs where he is wanted ; and that young Mary- 
lander of ours spoke for all our young men, when he 
said that his home was wherever the stars and stripes 
blew over his head. 

And that leads me to say a few words of this young 
gentleman, who made that audacious movement lately 
which I chronicled in my last record, — jumping over 
the seats of I don't know how many boarders to put 
himself in the place which the Little Gentleman's 
absence had left vacant at the side of Iris. When a 
young man is found habitually at the side of any one 
given young lady, — when he lingers where she stays, 
and hastens when she leaves, — when his eyes follow 
her as she moves, and rest upon her when she is 
still, — when he begins to grow a little timid, he who 
was so bold, and a little pensive, he who was so gay, 



290 THE PROFESSOR 

whenever accident finds them alone, — when he thinks 
very often of the given young lady, and names her 
very seldom, — 

What do you say about it, my charming young 
expert in that sweet science in which, perhaps, a long 
experience is not the first of qualifications ? 

— But we don't know anything about this young 
man, except that he is good-looking, and somewhat 
high-spirited, and strong-limbed, and has a generous 
style of nature, — all very promising, but by no means 
proving that he is a proper lover for Iris, whose heart 
we turned inside out when we opened that sealed 
book of hers. 

Ah, my dear young friend ! When your mamma — 
then, if you will believe it, a very slight young lady, 
with very pretty hair and figure — came and told her 
mamma that your papa had — had — asked — No, no, 
no! she couldn't say it; but her mother — oh, the 
depth of maternal sagacity ! — guessed it all without 
another word ! — When your mother, I say, came 
and told her mother she was engaged^ and your grand- 
mother told your grandfather, how much did they 
know of the intimate nature of the young gentleman 
to whom she had pledged her existence ? I will not 
be so hard as to ask how much your respected 
mamma knew at that time of the intimate nature of 
your respected papa, though, if we should compare a 
young girl's man-as-she-ihinks-hi7n with a forty-sum- 
mered matron's man-as-she-finds-him^ I have my 
doubts as to whether the second would be a fac- 
simile of the first in most cases. 

The idea that in this world each young person is 
to wait until he or she finds that precise counterpart 
who alone of all creation was meant for him or her, 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 29 1 

and then fall instantly in love with it, is pretty 
enough, only it is not Nature's way. It is not at all 
essential that all pairs of human beings should be, as 
we sometimes say of particular couples, "born for 
each other." Sometimes a man or a woman is made 
a great deal better and happier in the end for having 
had to conquer the faults of the one beloved, and 
make the fitness not found at first, by gradual assimi- 
lation. There is a class of good women who have no 
right to marry perfectly good men, because they have 
the power of saving those who would go to ruin but 
for the guiding .providence of a good wife. I have 
known many such cases. It is the most momentous 
question a woman is ever called upon to decide, 
whether the faults of the man she loves are beyond 
remedy and will drag her down, or whether she is 
competent to be his earthly redeemer and lift him to 
her own level. 

A person of goiius should marry a person of char- 
acter. Genius does not h-erd with genius. The 
musk-deer and the civet-cat are never found in com- 
pany. They don't care for strange scents, — they like 
plain animals better than perfumed ones. Nay, if you 
will have the kindness to notice. Nature has not gifted 
my lady musk-deer with the personal peculiarity by 
which her lord is so widely known. 

Now when genius allies itself with character, the 
world is very apt to think character has the best of 
the bargain. A brilliant woman marries a plain, 
manly fellow, with a simple intellectual mechanism ; — 
we have all seen such cases. The world often stares 
a good deal and wonders. She should have taken 
that other, with a far more complex mental machinery. 
She might have had a watch with the philosophical 



292 THE PROFESSOR 

compensation-balance, with the metaphysical index 
which can split a second into tenths, with the musi- 
cal chime which can turn every quarter of an hour 
into melody. She has chosen a plain one, that keeps 
good time, and that is all. 

Let her alone ! She knows what she is about. 
Genius has an infinitely deeper reverence for character 
than character can have for genius. To be sure, genius 
gets the world's praise, because its work is a tangible 
product, to be bought, or had for nothing. It bribes 
the common voice to praise it by presents of speeches, 
poems, statues, pictures, or whatever it can please with. 
Character evolves its best products for home consump- 
tion ; but, mind you, it takes a deal more to feed a 
family for thirty years than to make a holiday feast for 
our neighbors once or twice in our lives. You talk of 
the fire of genius. Many a blessed woman, who dies 
unsung and unremembered, has given out more of the 
real vital heat that keeps the life in human souls, with- 
out a spark flitting through her humble chimney to tell 
the world about it, than would set a dozen theories 
smoking, or a hundred odes simmering, in the brains 
of so many men of genius. It is in latent caloric, if I 
may borrow a philosophical expression, that many of 
the noblest hearts give out the life that warms them. 
Cornelia's lips grow white, and her pulse hardly warms 
her thin fingers, — but she has melted all the ice out 
of the hearts of those young Gracchi, and her lost 
heat is in the blood of her youthful heroes. We are 
always valuing the soul's temperature by the thermome- 
ter of public deed or word. Yet the great sun himself, 
when he pours his noonday beams upon some vast 
hyaline boulder, rent from the eternal ice-quarries, and 
floating toward the tropics, never warms it a fraction 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 293 

above the thirty-two degrees of Fahrenheit that marked 
the moment when the first drop trickled down its 
side. 

How we all like the spirting up of a fountain, seem- 
ingly against the law that makes water everywhere 
slide, roll, leap, tumble headlong, to get as low as the 
earth will let it ! That is genius. But what is this 
transient upward movement, which gives us the glitter 
and the rainbow, to that unsleeping, all-present force 
of gravity, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, (if 
the universe be eternal,) — the great outspread hand 
of God himself, forcing all things down into their 
places, and keeping them there? Such, in smaller 
proportion, is the force of character to the fitful move, 
ments of genius, as they are or have been linked to 
each other in many a household, where one name was 
historic, and tlie other, let me say the nobler, un- 
known, save by some faint reflected ray, borrowed 
from its lustrous companion. 

Oftentimes, as I have lain swinging on the water, 
in the swell of the Chelsea ferry-boats, in that long 
sharp-pointed, black cradle in which I love to let the 
great mother rock me, I have seen a tall ship glide by 
against the tide, as if drawn by some invisible tow- 
line, with a hundred strong arms pulling it. Her sails 
hung unfilled, her streamers were drooping, she had 
neither side-wheel nor stern-wheel; still she moved 
on, stately, in serene triumph, as if with her own life. 
But I knew that on the other side of the ship, hidden 
beneath the great hulk that swam so majestically, 
there was a little toiling steam-tug, with heart of fire 
and arms of iron, that was hugging it close and drag- 
ging it bravely on ; and I knew, that, if the little 
steam-tug untwined her arms and left the tall ship, it 



294 ^^^ PROFESSOR 

would wallow and roll about, and drift hither and 
thither, and go off with the refluent tide, no man 
knows whither. And so I have known more than 
one genius, high-decked, full-freighted, wide-sailed, 
gay-pennoned, that, but for the bare toiling arms, and 
brave, warm, beating heart of the faithful little wife, 
that nestled close in his shadow, and clung to him, so 
that no wind or wave could part them, and dragged 
him on against all the tide of circumstance, would 
soon have gone down the stream and been heard of 
no more. — No, I am too much a lover of genius, I 
sometimes think, and too often get impatient with dull 
people, so that, in their weak talk, where nothing is 
taken for granted, I look forward to some future pos- 
sible state of development, when a gesture passing 
between a beatified human soul and an archangel shall 
signify as much as the complete history of a planet, 
from the time when it curdled to the time when its 
sun was burned out. And yet, when a strong brain is 
weighed with a true heart, it seems to me like balanc- 
ing a bubble against a wedge of gold. 

— It takes a very true man to be a fitting companion 
for a woman of genius, but not a very great one. I 
am not sure that she will not embroider her ideal 
better on a plain ground than on one with a brilliant 
pattern already worked in its texture. But as the 
very essence of genius is truthfulness, contact with 
realities, (which are always ideas behind shows of 
form or language,) nothing is so contemptible as false- 
hood and pretence in its eyes. Now it is not easy to 
find a perfectly true woman, and it is very hard to find 
a perfectly true man. And a woman of genius, who 
has the sagacity to choose such a one as her com- 
panion, shows more of the divine gift in so doing than 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 295 

in her finest talk or her most briUiant work of letters 
or of art. 

I have been a good while coming at a secret, for 
which I wished to prepare you before telling it. I 
think there is a kindly feeling growing up between 
Iris and our young Marylander. Not that I suppose 
there is any distinct understanding between them, but 
that the affinity which has drawn him from the remote 
corner where he sat to the side of the young girl is 
quietly bringing their two natures together. Just now 
she is all given up to another ; but when he no longer 
calls upon her daily thoughts and cares, I warn you 
not to be surprised, if this bud of friendship open like 
the evening primrose, with a sound as of a sudden 
stolen kiss, and lo ! the flower of full-blown love lies 
unfolded before you. 

And now the days had come for our little friend, 
whose whims and weaknesses had interested us, per- 
haps, as much as his better traits, to make ready for 
that long journey which is easier to the cripple than 
to the strong man, and on which none enters so will- 
ingly as he who has borne the life-long load of in- 
firmity during his earthly pilgrimage. At this point, 
under most circumstances, I would close the doors and 
draw the veil of privacy before the chamber where the 
birth which we call death, out of life into the unknown 
world, is working its mystery. But this friend of ours 
stood alone in the world, and, as the last act of his 
life was mainly in harmony with the rest of its drama, 
I do not here feel the force of the objection commonly 
lying against that death-bed literature which forms the 
staple of a certain portion of the press. Let me explain 
what I mean, so that my readers may think for them- 



296 THE PROFESSOR 

selves a little, before they accuse me of hasty expres- 
sions. 

The Roman Catholic Church has certain formulae 
for its dying children, to which almost all of them 
attach the greatest importance. There is hardly a 
criminal so abandoned that he is not anxious to receive 
the "consolations of religion" in his last hours. 
Even if he be senseless, but still living, I think that 
the form is gone through with, just as baptism is ad- 
ministered to the unconscious new-born child. Now 
we do not quarrel with these forms. We look with 
reverence and affection upon all symbols which give 
peace and comfort to our fellow-creatures. But the 
value of the new-born child's passive consent to the 
ceremony is null, as testimony to the truth of a doc- 
trine. The automatic closing of a dying man's lips 
on the consecrated wafer proves nothing in favor of 
the Real Presence, or any other dogma. And, speak- 
ing generally, the evidence of dying men in favor of 
any belief is to be received with great caution. 

They commonly tell the truth about their present 
feelings, no doubt. A dying man's deposition about 
anything he kjtows is good evidence. But it is of 
much less consequence what a man thinks and says 
when he is changed by pain, weakness, apprehension, 
than what he thinks when he is truly and wholly him- 
self. Most murderers die in a very pious frame of 
mind, expecting to go to glory at once ; yet no man 
believes he shall meet a larger average of pirates and 
cut-throats in the streets of the New Jerusalem than of 
honest folks that died in their beds. 

Unfortunately, there has been a very great tendency 
to make capital of various kinds out of dying men's 
speeches. The lies that have been put into their 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 297 

mouths for this purpose are endless. The prime 
minister, whose last breath was spent in scolding his 
nurse, dies with a magnificent apothegm on his lips, 
— manufactured by a reporter. Addison gets up a 
tableau and utters an admirable sentiment, — or some- 
body makes the posthumous dying epigram for him. 
The incoherent babble of green fields is translated 
into the language of stately sentiment. One would 
think, all that dying men had to do was to say the 
prettiest thing they could, — to make their rhetorical 
point, — and then bow themselves politely out of the 
world. 

Worse than this is the torturing of dying people 
to get their evidence in favor of this or that favorite 
belief. The camp-followers of proselyting sects have 
come in at the close of every life where they could get 
in, to strip the languishing soul of its thoughts and 
carry them off as spoils. The Roman Catholic or 
other priest who insists on the reception of his for- 
mula means kindly, we trust, and very commonly suc- 
ceeds in getting the acquiescence of the subject of his 
spiritual surgery. But do not let us take the testi- 
mony of people who are in the worst condition to 
form opinions as evidence of the truth or falsehood of 
that which they accept. A lame man's opinion of 
dancing is not good for much. A poor fellow who 
can neither eat nor drink, who is sleepless and full of 
pains, whose flesh has wasted from him, whose blood 
is like water, who is gasping for breath, is not in a 
condition to judge fairly of human life, which in all 
its main adjustments is intended for men in a normal, 
healthy condition. It is a remark I have heard from 
the wise Patriarch of the Medical Profession among 
us, that the moral condition of patients with disease 



298 THE PROFESSOR 

above the great breathing-muscle, the diaphragm, is 
much more hopeful than that of patients with disease 
below it, in the digestive organs. Many an honest 
ignorant man has given us pathology when he thought 
he was giving us psychology. With this preliminary 
caution I shall proceed to the story of the Little 
Gentleman's leaving us. 

When the divinity-student found that our fellow- 
boarder was not likely to remain long with us, he, 
being a young man of tender conscience and kindly 
nature, was not a little exercised on his behalf. It 
was undeniable that on several occasions the Little 
Gentleman had expressed himself with a good deal of 
freedom on a class of subjects which, according to the 
divinity-student, he had no right to form an opinion 
upon. He therefore considered his future welfare in 
jeopardy. 

The Muggletonian sect have a very odd way of 
dealing with people. If I, the Professor, will only 
give in to the Muggletonian doctrine, there shall be 
no question through all that persuasion that I am 
competent to judge of that doctrine ; nay, I shall be 
quoted as evidence of its truth, while I live, and cited, 
after I am dead, as testimony in its behalf; but if I 
utter any ever so slight Anti-Muggletonian sentiment, 
then I become iiicojnpctent to fonn any opinion on the 
matter. This, you cannot fail to observe, is exactly 
the way the pseudo-sciences go to work, as explained 
in my Lecture on Phrenology. Now I hold that he 
whose testimony would be accepted in behalf of the 
Muggletonian doctrine has a right to be heard against 
it. Whoso offers me any article of belief for my sig- 
nature implies that I am competent to form an opinion 
upon it ; and if my positive testimony in its favor is 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 299 

of any value, then my negative testimony against it is 
also of value. 

I thought my young friend's attitude was a little too 
much like that of the Muggletonians. I also remarked 
a singular timidity on his part lest somebody should 
" unsettle " somebody's faith, — as if faith did not re- 
quire exercise as much as any other living thing, and 
were not all the better for a shaking up now and then, 
I don't mean that it would be fair to bother Bridget, 
the wild Irish girl, or Joice Heth, the centenarian, or 
any other intellectual non-combatant ; but all persons 
who proclaim a belief which passes judgment on their 
neighbors must be ready to have it " unsettled," that 
is, questioned, at all times and by anybody, — just as 
those who set up bars across a thoroughfare must ex- 
pect to have them taken down by every one who wants 
to pass, if he is strong enough. 

Besides, to think of trying to water-proof the Ameri- 
can mind against the questions that Heaven rains 
down upon it shows a misapprehension of our new 
conditions. If to question everything be unlawful and 
dangerous, we had better undeclare our independence 
at once ; for what the Declaration means is the right 
to question everything, even the truth of its own fun- 
damental proposition. 

The old-world order of things is an arrangement of 
locks and canals, where everything depends on keep- 
ing the gates shut, and so holding the upper waters 
at their level ; but the system under which the young 
republican American is born trusts the whole unim- 
peded tide of life to the great elemental influences, as 
the vast rivers of the continent settle their own level 
in obedience to the laws that govern the planet and 
the spheres that surround it. 



300 THE PROFESSOR 

The divinity-student was not quite up to the idea 
of the commonwealth, as our young friend the Mary- 
lander, for instance, understood it. He could not 
get rid of that notion of private property in truth, 
with the right to fence it in, and put up a sign- 
board, thus : — 

l^'ALL TRESPASSERS ARE WARNED OFF THESE 
GROUNDS ! 

He took the young Marylander to task for going to 
the Church of the Galileans, where he had several 
times accompanied Iris of late. 

I am a Churchman, — the young man said, — by 
education and habit. I love my old Church for many 
reasons, but most of all because I think it has educated 
me out of its own forms into the spirit of its highest 
teachings. I think I belong to the " Broad Church," 
if any of you can tell what that means. 

I had the rashness to attempt to answer the question 
myself. — Some say the Broad Church means the col- 
lective mass of good people of all denominations. 
Others say that such a definition is nonsense ; that a 
church is an organization, and the scattered good folks 
are no organization at all. They think that men will 
eventually come together on the basis of one or two 
or more common articles of belief, and form a great 
unity. Do they see what this amounts to ? It means 
an equal division of intellect ! It is mental agrarian- 
ism ! a thing that never was and never will be, until 
national and individual idiosyncrasies have ceased to 
exist. The man of thirty-nine beliefs holds the man 
of one belief a pauper; he is not going to give up 
thirty-eight of them for the sake of fraternizing with 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 30I 

the other in the temple which bears on its front, 
'■'' Deo er exit Volt air e^ A church is a garden, I have 
heard it said, and the illustration was neatly handled. 
Yes, and there is no such thing as a broad garden. 
It must be fenced in, and whatever is fenced in is 
narrow. You cannot have arctic and tropical plants 
growing together in it, except by the forcing system, 
which is a mighty narrow piece of business. You 
can't make a village or a parish or a family think alike, 
yet you suppose that you can make a world pinch its 
beliefs or pad them to a single pattern ! Why, the 
very life of an ecclesiastical organization is a life of 
induction., a state of perpetually disturbed equilibrium 
kept up by another charged body in the neighborhood. 
If the two bodies touch and share their respective 
charges, down goes the index of the electrometer. 

Do you know that every man has a religious behef 
peculiar to himself ? Smith is always a Smithite. He 
takes in exactly Smith's-worth of knowledge, Smith's- 
worth of truth, of beauty, of divinity. And Brown has 
from time immemorial been trying to burn him, to 
excommunicate him, to anonymous-article him, be- 
cause he did not take in Brown's-worth of knowledge, 
truth, beauty, divinity. He cannot do it, any more 
than a pint-pot can hold a quart, or a quart-pot be 
filled by a pint. Iron is essentially the same every- 
where and always ; but the sulphate of iron is never 
the same as the carbonate of iron. Truth is invari- 
able ; but the Smithate of truth must always differ 
from the Brownate of truth. 

The wider the intellect, the larger and simpler the 
expressions in which its knowledge is embodied. The 
inferior race, the degraded and enslaved people, the 
small-minded individual, live in the details which to 



302 THE PROFESSOR 

larger minds and more advanced tribes of men reduce 
themselves to axioms arid laws. As races and indi- 
vidual minds must always differ just as sulphates and 
carbonates do, I cannot see ground for expecting the 
Broad Church to be founded on any fusion of intel- 
lectual beliefs, which of course implies that those who 
hold the larger number of doctrines as essential shall 
come down to those who hold the smaller number. 
These doctrines are to the negative aristocracy what 
the quarterings of their coats are to the positive 
orders of nobility. 

The Broad Church, I think, will never be based on 
anything that requires the use of language. Free- 
masonry gives an idea of such a church, and a brother 
is known and cared for in a strange land where no 
word of his can be understood. The apostle of this 
church may be a deaf mute carrying a cup of cold 
water to a thirsting fellow-creature. The cup of cold 
water does not require to be translated for a foreigner 
to understand it. I am afraid the only Broad Church 
possible is one that has its creed in the heart, and not 
in the head, — that we shall know its members by 
their fruits, and not by their words. If you say this 
communion of well-doers is no church, I can only 
answer, that all organized bodies have their limits of 
size, and that when we find a man a hundred feet 
high and thirty feet broad across the shoulders, we 
will look out for an organization that shall include all 
Christendom. 

Some of us do practically recognize a Broad Church 
and a Narrow Church, however. The Narrow Church 
may be seen in the ship's boats of humanity, in the 
long boat, in the jolly boat, in the captain's gig, lying 
off the poor old vessel, thanking God that they are 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 303 

safe, and reckoning how soon the hulk containing the 
mass of their fellow-creatures will go down. The 
Broad Church is on board, working hard at the pumps, 
and very slow to believe that the ship will be swal- 
lowed up with so many poor people in it, fastened 
down under the hatches ever since it floated. 

— All this, of course, was nothing but my poor 
notion about these matters. lam simply an "out- 
sider," you know ; only it does n't do very well for a 
nest of Hingham boxes to talk too much about out- 
siders and insiders ! 

After this talk of ours, I think these two young peo- 
ple went pretty regularly to the Church of the Gali- 
leans. Still they could not keep away from the sweet 
harmonies and rhythmic litanies of Saint Polycarp on 
the great Church festival-days ; so that, between the 
two, they were so much together, that the boarders 
began to make remarks, and our landlady said to me, 
one day, that, though it was noon of her business, 
them that had eyes could n't help seein' that there 
was somethin' goin' on between them two young peo- 
ple ; she thought the young man was a very likely 
young man, though jest what his prospecs was was 
unbeknown to her ; but she thought he must be doin' 
well and rather guessed he would be able to take care 
of a femily, if he did n't go to takin' a house ; for a 
gentleman and his wife could board a great deal 
cheaper than they could keep house ; — but then that 
girl was nothin' but a child, and wouldn't think of 
bein' married this five year. They was good boarders, 
both of 'em, paid regular, and was as pooty a couple 
as she ever laid eyes on. 

— To come back to what I began to speak of be- 
fore, — the divinity-student was exercised in his mind 



304 THE PROFESSOR 

about the Little Gentleman, and, in the kindness of 
his heart, — for he was a good young man, — and in 
the strength of his convictions, — for he took it for 
granted that he and his crowd were right, and other 
folks and their crowd were wrong, — he determined to 
bring the Little Gentleman round to his faith before 
he died, if he could. So he sent word to the sick 
man, that he should be pleased to visit him and have 
some conversation with him ; and received for answer 
that he would be welcome. 

The divinity-student made him a visit, therefore, 
and had a somewhat remarkable interview with him, 
which I shall briefly relate, without attempting to jus- 
tify the positions taken by the Little Gentleman. He 
found him weak, but calm. Iris sat silent by his pillow. 

After the usual preliminaries, the divinity-student 
said, in a kind way, that he was sorry to find him in 
failing health, that he felt concerned for his soul, and 
was anxious to assist him in making preparations for 
the great change awaiting him. 

I thank you. Sir, — said the Little Gentleman; — 
permit me to ask you, what makes you think I am not 
ready for it, Sir, and that you can do anything to help 
me. Sir ? 

I address you only as a fellow-man, — said the 
divinity-student, — and therefore a fellow-sinner. 

I am not a man. Sir ! — said the Little Gentleman. 

— I was born into this world the wreck of a man, and 
I shall not be judged with a race to which I do not 
belong. Look at this ! — he said, and held up his 
withered arm. — See there! — and he pointed to his 
misshapen extremities. — Lay your hand here ! — and 
he laid his own on the region of his misplaced heart. 

— I have known nothing of the life of your race. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 305 

When I first came to my consciousness, I found my- 
self an object of pity, or a sight to show. The first 
strange child I ever remember hid its face and would 
not come near me. I was a broken-hearted as well 
as broken-bodied boy. I grew into the emotions of 
ripening youth, and all that I could have loved shrank 
from my presence. I became a man in years, and had 
nothing in common with manhood but its longings. 
My life is the dying pang of a worn-out race, and I shall 
go down alone into the dust, out of this world of men 
and women, without ever knowing the fellowship of the 
one or the love of the other. I will not die with a lie 
rattling in my throat. If another state of being has any- 
thing worse in store for me, I have had a long appren- 
ticeship to give me strength that I may bear it. I don't 
believe it. Sir ! I have too much faith for that. God 
has not left me wholly without comfort, even here. I 
love this old place where I was born ; — the heart of 
the world beats under the three hills of Boston, Sir ! 
I love this great land, with so many tall men in it, and 
so many good, noble women. — His eyes turned to the 
silent figure by his pillow. — I have learned to accept 
meekly what has been allotted to me, but I cannot 
honestly say that I think my sin has been greater than 
my suffering. I bear the ignorance and the evil-doing 
of whole generations in my single person. I never 
drew a breath of air nor took a step that was not a 
punishment for another's fault. I may have had many 
wrong thoughts, but I cannot have done many wrong 
deeds, — for my cage has been a narrow one, and I 
have paced it alone. I have looked through the bars 
and seen the great world of men busy and happy, but 
I had no part in their doings. I have known what it 
was to dream of the great passions ; but since my 



306 THE PROFESSOR 

mother kissed me before she died, no woman's lips 
have pressed my cheek, — nor ever will. 

— The young girl's eyes glittered with a sudden 
film, and almost without a thought, but with a warm 
human instinct that rushed up into her face with her 
heart's blood, she bent over and kissed him. It was 
the sacrament that washed out the memory of long 
years of bitterness, and I should hold it an unworthy 
thought to defend her. 

The Little Gentleman repaid her with the only tear 
any of us ever saw him shed. 

The divinity-student rose from his place, and, turn- 
ing away from the sick man, walked to the other side 
of the room where he bowed his head and was still. 
All the questions he had meant to ask had faded from 
his memory. The tests he had prepared by which to 
judge of his fellow-creature's fitness for heaven seemed 
to have lost their virtue. He could trust the crippled 
child of sorrow to the Infinite Parent. The kiss of the 
fair-haired girl had been like a sign from heaven, that 
angels watched over him whom he was presuming but 
a moment before to summon before the tribunal of his 
private judgment. 

Shall I pray with you? — he said, after a pause. — 
A little before he would have said, Shall I pray/<?r 
you? — The Christian religion, as taught by its 
Founder, is full of seiitimc7it. So we must not blame 
the divinity-student, if he was overcome by those 
yearnings of human sympathy which predominate so 
much more in the sermons of the Master than in the 
writings of his successors, and which have made the 
parable of the Prodigal Son the consolation of man- 
kind, as it has been the stumbling-block of all exclu- 
sive doctrines. 



AT THE BREAKFAST- TABLE. 307 

Pray ! — said the Little Gentleman. 

The divinity-student prayed, in low tender tones, 
that God would look on his servant lying helpless at 
the feet of his mercy ; that he would remember his 
long years of bondage in the flesh ; that he would deal 
gently with the bruised reed. Thou hast visited the 
sins of the fathers upon this their child. Oh, turn 
away from him the penalties of his own transgres- 
sions ! Thou hast laid upon him, from infancy, the 
cross which thy stronger children are called upon to 
take up ; and now that he is fainting under it, be Thou 
his stay, and do Thou succor him that is tempted ! 
Let his manifold infirmities come between him and 
Thy judgment; in wrath remember mercy! If his 
eyes are not open to all Thy truth, let Thy compassion 
lighten the darkness that rests upon him, even as it 
came through the word of Thy Son to blind Bartimeus, 
who sat by the wayside, begging ! 

Many more petitions he uttered, but all in the same 
subdued tone of tenderness. In the presence of help- 
less suffering, and in the fast-darkening shadow of the 
Destroyer, he forgot all but his Christian humanity, 
and cared more about consoling his fellow-man than 
making a proselyte of him. 

This was the last prayer to which the Little Gentle- 
man ever listened. Some change was rapidly coming 
over him during this last hour of which I have been 
speaking. The excitement of pleading his cause 
before his self-elected spiritual adviser — the emotion 
which overcame him, when the young girl obeyed the 
sudden impulse of her feelings and pressed her lips to 
his cheek, — the thoughts that mastered him while 
the divinity-student poured out his soul for him in 
prayer, might well hurry on the inevitable moment. 



308 THE PROFESSOR 

When the divinity-student had uttered his last petition, 
commending him to the Father through his Son's in- 
tercession, he turned to look upon him before leaving 
his chamber. His face was changed. — There is a 
language of the human countenance which we all 
understand without an interpreter, though the linea- 
ments belong to the rudest savage that ever stam- 
mered in an unknown barbaric dialect. By the 
stillness of the sharpened features, by the blankness 
of the tearless eyes, by the fixedness of the smileless 
mouth, by the deadening tints, by the contracted 
brow, by the dilating nostril, we know that the soul is 
soon to leave its mortal tenement, and is already clos- 
ing up its windows and putting out its fires. — Such 
was the aspect of the face upon which the divinity- 
student looked, after the brief silence which followed 
his prayer. The change had been rapid, though not 
that abrupt one which is liable to happen at any 
moment in these cases. — The sick man looked towards 
him. — Farewell, — he said. — I thank you. Leave me 
alone with her. 

When the divinity-student had gone, and the Little 
Gentleman found himself alone with Iris, he lifted his 
hand to his neck, and took from it, suspended by a 
slender chain, a quaint, antique-looking key, — the 
same key I had once seen him holding. He gave 
this to hef, and pointed to a carved cabinet opposite 
his bed, one of those that had so attracted my curious 
eyes and set me wondering as to what it might con- 
tain. 

Open it, — he said, — and light the lamp. — The 
young girl walked to the cabinet and unlocked the 
door. A deep recess appeared, lined with black vel- 
vet, against which stood in white relief an ivory cru- 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 309 

cifix. A silver lamp hung over it. She lighted the 
lamp and came back to the bedside. The dying man 
fixed his eyes upon the figure of the dying Saviour. — 
Give me yom* hand, — he said; and Iris placed her 
right hand in his left. So they remained, until pres- 
ently his eyes lost their meaning, though they still 
remained vacantly fixed upon the white image. Yet 
he held the young girl's hand firmly, as if it were 
leading him through some deep-shadowed valley and 
it was all he could cling to. But presently an invol- 
untary muscular contraction stole over him, and his 
terrible dying grasp held the poor girl as if she were 
wedged in an engine of torture. She pressed her 
lips together and sat still. The inexorable hand held 
her tighter and tighter, until she felt as if her own 
slender fingers would be crushed in its gripe. It was 
one of the tortures of the Inquisition she was suffer- 
ing, and she could not stir from her place. Then, in 
her great anguish, she, too, cast her eyes upon that 
dying figure, and, looking upon its pierced hands and 
feet and side and lacerated forehead, she felt that she 
also must suffer uncomplaining. In the moment of 
her sharpest pain she did not forget the duties of her 
tender office, but dried the dying man's moist fore- 
head with her handkerchief, even while the dews of 
agony were glistening on her own. How long this 
lasted she never could tell. Time and thirst are two 
things you and I talk about ; but the victims whom 
holy men and righteous judges used to stretch on 
their engines knew better what they meant than you 
or I ! — What is that great bucket of water for? said 
the Marchioness de Brinvilliers, before she was placed 
on the rack. — For you to drink^ — said the torturer to 
the little woman. — She could not think that it would 



3IO THE PROFESSOR 

take such a flood to quench the fire in her and so 
keep her ahve for her confession. The torturer 
knew better than she. 

After a time not to be counted in minutes, as the 
clock measures, — without any warning, — there came 
a swift change of his features ; his face turned white, 
as the waters whiten when a sudden breath passes 
over their still surface ; the muscles instantly relaxed, 
and Iris, released at once from her care for the suf- 
ferer and from his unconscious grasp, fell senseless, 
with a feeble cry, — the only utterance of her long 
agony. 

Perhaps you sometimes wander in through the iron 
gates of the Copp's-Hill burial-ground. You love to 
stroll round among the graves that crowd each other 
in the thickly peopled soil of that breezy summit. 
You love to lean on the freestone slab which lies over 
the bones of the Mathers, — to read the epitaph of 
stout William Clark, " Despiser of Sorry Persons and 
little Actions," — to stand by the stone grave of 
sturdy Daniel Malcolm and look upon the splintered 
slab that tells the old rebel's story, — to kneel by the 
triple stone that says how the three Worthylakes, 
father, mother, and young daughter, died on the same 
day and lie buried there ; a mystery ; the subject of a 
moving ballad, by the late Benjamin Franklin, — 
as may be seen in his autobiography, which will ex- 
plain the secret of the triple gravestone ; though the 
old philosopher has made a mistake, unless the stone 
is wrong. 

Not very far from that you will find a fair mound, 
of dimensions fit to hold a well-grown man. I will 
not tell you the inscription upon the stone which 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 31 1 

stands at its head ; for I do not wish you to be sure 
of the resting-place of one who could not bear to 
think that he should be known as a cripple among 
the dead, after being pointed at so long among the 
living. There is one sign, it is true, by which, if you 
have been a sagacious reader of these papers, you will 
at once know it ; but I fear you read carelessly, and 
must study them more diligently before you will 
detect the hint to which I allude. 

The Little Gentleman lies where he longed to lie, 
among the old names and the old bones of the old 
Boston people. At the foot of his resting-place is the 
river, alive with the wings and antennae of its colossal 
water-insects ; over opposite are the great war-ships, 
and the heavy guns, which, when they roar, shake the 
soil in which he lies ; and in the steeple of Christ 
Church, hard by, are the sweet chimes which are the 
Boston boy's Ranz des Vaches^ whose echoes follow 
him all the world over. 

In Pace ! 



I told you a good while ago that the Little Gentleman 
could not do a better thing than to leave all his money, 
whatever it might be, to the young girl who has since 
that established such a claim upon him. He did not, 
however. A considerable bequest to one of our pub- 
lic institutions keeps his name in grateful remem- 
brance. The telescope through which he was fond of 
watching the heavenly bodies, and the movements of 
which had been the source of such odd fancies on my 
part, is now the property of a Western College. You 
smile as you think of my taking it for a fleshless 



312 THE PROFESSOR 

human figure, when I saw its tube pointing to the sky, 
and thought it was an arm, under the white drapery 
thrown over it for protection. So do I smile now ; I 
belong to the numerous class who are prophets after 
the fact, and hold my nightmares very cheap by day- 
light. 

I have received many letters of inquiry as to the 
sound resembling a woman'' s voice, which occasioned 
me so many perplexities. Some thought there was no 
question that he had a second apartment, in which 
he had made an asylum for a deranged female rela- 
tive. Others were of opinion that he was, as I once 
suggested, a " Bluebeard" with patriarchal tendencies, 
and I have even been censured for introducing so 
Oriental an element into my record of boarding-house 
experience. ^ 

Come in and see me, the Professor, some evening 
when I have nothing else to do, and ask- me to play 
you TartinVs DeviVs Sonata on that extraordinary 
instrument in my possession, well known to amateurs 
as one of the master-pieces of Joseph Gicarnerins, 
The vox hiunana of the great Haerlem organ is very 
lifelike, and the same stop in the organ of the Cam- 
bridge chapel might be mistaken in some of its tones 
for a human voice ; but I think you never heard any- 
thing ccme so near the cry of a prima donna as the 
A string and the E string of this instrument. A 
single fact will illustrate the resemblance. I was exe- 
cuting some tonrs dc force upon it one evening, when 
the policeman of our district rang the bell sharply, 
and asked what was the matter in the house. He had 
heard a woman's screams, — he was sure of it. I had 
to make the instrument .w/jc- before his eyes before he 
could be satisfied tliat he had not heard thfe cries of a 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 313 

woman. This instrument was bequeathed to me by 
the Little Gentleman. Whether it had anything to 
do with the sounds I heard coming from his chamber, 
you can form your own opinion ; — I have no other 
conjecture to offer. It is not true that a second 
apartment with a secret entrance was found ; and the 
story of the veiled lady is the invention of one of the 
Reporters. 

Bridget, the housemaid, always insisted that he 
died a Catholic. She had seen the crucifix, and be- 
lieved that he prayed on his knees before it. The 
last circumstance is very probably true ; indeed, there 
was a spot worn on the carpet just before this cabinet 
which might be thus accounted for. Why he, whose 
whole life was a crucifixion, should not love to look on 
that divine image of blameless suffering, I cannot see ; 
on the contrary, it seems to me the most natural thing 
in the world that he should. But there are those 
who want to make private property of everything, and 
can't make up their minds that people who don't think 
as they do should claim any interest in that infinite 
compassion expressed in the central figure of the 
Christendom which includes us all. 

The divinity-student expressed a hope before the 
boarders that he should meet him in heaven. — The 
question is whether he HI meet/<9?if, — said the young 
fellow John, rather smartly. The divinity-student 
had n't thought of that. 

However, he is a worthy young man, and I trust I 
have shown him in a kindly and respectful light. He 
will get a parish by-and-by ; and, as he is about to 
marry the sister of an old friend, — the Schoolmis- 
tress, whom some of us remember, — and as all sorts 
of expensive accidents happen to young married min- 



314 THE PROFESSOR 



salary, which means starvation, if they are forfeited, 
to think all his days as he thought when he was 
settled, — unless the majority of his people change 
with him or in advance of him. A hard case, to which 
nothing could reconcile a man, except that the faith- 
ful discharge of daily duties in his personal relations 
with his parishioners will make him useful enough in 
his way, though as a thinker he may cease to exist 
before he has reached middle age. 

— Iris went into mourning for the Little Gentleman. 
Although, as I have said, he left the bulk of his prop- 
erty, by will, to a public institution, he added a codicil, 
by which he disposed of various pieces of property as 
tokens of kind remembrance. It was in this way I 
became the possessor of the wonderful instrument I 
have spoken of, which had been purchased for him 
out of an Italian convent. The landlady was com- 
forted with a small legacy. The following extract 
relates to Iris : " — in consideration of her manifold 
acts of kindness, but only in token of grateful remem- 
brance, and by no means as a reward for services 
which cannot be compensated, a certain messuage, 

with all the land thereto appertaining, situate in 

Street, at the North End, so called, of Boston, afore- 
said, the same being the house in which I was born, 
but now inhabited by several families, and known as 
'the Rookery.'" Iris had also the crucifix, the por- 
trait, and the red-jewelled ring. The funeral or 
death's-head ring was buried with him. 

It was a good while, after the Little Gentleman was 
gone, before our boarding-house recovered its wonted 
cheerfulness. There was a flavor in his whims and 
local prejudices that we liked, even while we smiled at 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 315 

them. It was hard to see the tall chair thrust away 
among useless lumber, to dismantle his room, to take 
down the picture of Leah, the handsome witch of 
Essex, to move away the massive shelves that held 
the books he loved, to pack up the tube through which 
he used to study the silent stars, looking down at him 
like the eyes of dumb creatures, with a kind of stupid 
half-consciousness that did not worry him as did the 
eyes of men and women, — and hardest of all to dis- 
place that sacred figure to which his heart had always 
turned and found refuge, in the feelings it inspired, 
from all the perplexities of his busy brain. It was 
hard, but it had to be done. 

And by-and-by we grew cheerful again, and the 
breakfast-table wore something of its old look. The 
Koh-i-noor, as we named the gentleman with the dia- 
?nondj left us, however, soon after that " little mill," 
as the young fellow John called it, where he came off 
second best. His departure was no doubt hastened 
by a note from the landlady's daughter, enclosing a lock 
of purple hair which she "had valued as a pledge of 
affection, ere she knew the hollowness of the vows he 
had breathed," speedily followed by another, enclosing 
the landlady's bill. The next morning he was miss- 
ing, as were his limited wardrobe and the trunk that 
held it. Three empty bottles of Mrs. Allen's cele- 
brated preparation, each of them asserting, on its 
word of honor as a bottle, that its former contents 
were " not a dye," were all that was left to us of the 
Koh-i-noor. 

From this time forward, the landlady's daughter 
manifested a decided improvement in her style of 
carrying herself before the boarders. She abolished 
the odious little, flat, gummy side-curl. She left off 



3l6 THE PROFESSOR 

various articles of "jewelry." She began to help her 
mother in some of her household duties. She became 
a regular attendant on the ministrations of a very 
worthy clergyman, having been attracted to his meetin' 
by witnessing a marriage ceremony in which he called 
a man and a woman a '• gentleman " and a " lady," — 
a stroke of gentility which quite overcame her. She 
even took a part in what she called a Sahbath school, 
though it was held on Sunday, and by no means on 
Saturday, as the name she intended to utter implied. 
All this, which was very sincere, as I believe, on her 
part, and attended with a great improvement in her 
character, ended in her bringing home a young man, 
with straight, sandy hair, brushed so as to stand up 
steeply above his forehead, wearing a pair of green 
spectacles, and dressed in black broadcloth. His 
personal aspect, and a certain solemnity of counte- 
nance, led me to think he must be a clergyman; and 
as Master Benjamin Franklin blurted out before sev- 
eral of us boarders, one day, that " Sis had got a 
beau," I was pleased at the prospect of her becom- 
ing a minister''s wife. On inquiry, however, I found 
that the somewhat solemn look which I had noticed 
was indeed a professional one, but not clerical. He 
was a young undertaker, who had just succeeded to a 
thriving business. Things, I believe, are going on 
well at this time of writing, and I am glad for the 
landlady's daughter and her mother. Sextons and 
undertakers are the cheerfullest people in the world at 
home, as comedians and circus-clowns are the most 
melancholy in their domestic circle. 

As our old boarding-house is still in existence, I do 
not feel at liberty to give too minute a statement of 
the present condition of each and all of its inmates. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 317 

I am happy to say, however, that they are all alive and 
well, up to this time. That kind old gentleman who 
sat opposite to me is growing older, as old men will, 
but still smiles benignantly on all the boarders, and 
has come to be a kind of father to all of them, — so 
that on his birthday there is always something like 
a family festival. The Poor Relation, even, has 
warmed into a filial feeling towards him, and on his 
last birtliday made him a beautiful present, namely, a 
very handsomely bound copy of Blair's celebrated 
poem, " The Grave." 

The young man John is still, as he says, " in fust- 
rate fettle." I saw him spar, not long since, at a pri- 
vate exhibition, and do himself great credit in a set-to 
with Henry Finnegass, Esq., a professional gentle- 
man of celebrity. I am pleased to say that he has 
been promoted to an upper clerkship, and, in conse- 
quence of his rise in office, has taken an apartment 
somewhat lower down than number " forty-'leven," 
as he facetiously called his attic. Whether there is 
any truth, or not, in the story of his attachment to, 
and favorable reception by, the daughter of the head 
of an extensive wholesale grocer's establishment, I will 
not venture an opinion ; I may say, however, that I 
have met him repeatedly in company with a very well- 
nourished and high-colored young lady, who, I under- 
sti.nd, is the daughter of the house in question. 

Some of the boarders were of opinion that Iris did 
not return the undisguised attentions of the handsome 
young Marylander. Instead of fixing her eyes stead- 
ily on him, as she used to look upon the Little Gen- 
tleman, she would turn tliem away, as if to avoid his 
own. They often went to church together, it is true ; 
but nobody, of course, supposes there is any relation 



3l8 THE PROFESSOR 

between religious sympathy and those wretched 
" sentimental " movements of the human heart upon 
which it is commonly agreed that nothing better is 
based than society, civilization, friendship, the rela- 
tion of husband and wife, and of parent and child, 
and which many people must think were singularly 
overrated by the Teacher of Nazareth, whose whole 
life, as I said before, was full of sentiment, loving this 
or that young man, pardoning this or that sinner, 
weeping over the dead, mourning for the doomed city, 
blessing, and perhaps kissing, the little children, — 
so that the Gospels are still cried over almost as often 
as the last work of fiction ! 

But one fine June morning there rumbled up to the 
door of our boarding-house a hack containing a lady 
inside and a trunk on the outside. It was our friend 
the lady-patroness of Miss Iris, the same who had 
been called by her admiring pastor " The Model of 
all the Virtues." Once a week she had written a let- 
ter, in a rather formal hand, but full of good advice, to 
her young charge. And now she had come to carry 
her away, thinking that she had learned all that she 
was likely to learn under her present course of teach- 
ing. The Model, however, was to stay awhile, — a 
week, or more, — before they should leave together. 

Iris was obedient, as she was bound to be. She 
was respectful, grateful, as a child is with a just but 
not tender parent. Yet something was wrong. She 
had one of her trances, and became statue-like, as 
before, only the day after the Model's arrival. She 
was wan and silent, tasted nothing at table, smiled as 
if by a forced effort, and often looked vaguely away 
from those who were looking at her, her eyes just 
glazed with the shining moisture of a tear that must 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 319 

not be allowed to gather and fall. Was it grief at 
parting from the place where her strange friendship 
had grown up with the Little Gentleman? Yet she 
seemed to have become reconciled to his loss, and 
rather to have a deep feeling of gratitude that she had 
been permitted to care for him in his last weary days. 

The Sunday after the Model's arrival, that lady had 
an attack of headache, and was obliged to shut her- 
self up in a darkened room alone. Our two young 
friends took the opportunity to go together to the 
Church of the Galileans. They said but little going, 
" collecting their thoughts " for the service, I devoutly 
hope. My kind good friend the pastor preached that 
day one of his sermons that make us all feel like 
brothers and sisters, and his text was that affectionate 
one from John, " My little children, let us not love in 
word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth." 
When Iris and her friend came out of church, they 
were both pale, and walked a space without speaking. 

At last the young man said, — You and I are not 
little children, Iris ! 

She looked in his face an instant, as if startled, for 
there was something strange in the tone of his voice. 
She smiled faintly, but spoke never a word. 

In deed and in truth. Iris, — 

What shall a poor girl say or do, when a strong 
man falters in his speech before her, and can do noth- 
ing better than hold out his hand to finish his broken 
sentence ? 

The poor girl said nothing, but quietly laid her un- 
gloved hand in his, — the little soft white hand which 
had ministered so tenderly and suffered so patiently. 

The blood came back to the young man's cheeks, 
as he lifted it to his lips, even as they walked there in 



320 THE PROFESSOR 

the street, touched it gently with them, and said, — 
" It is mine ! " 

Iris did not contradict him. 



The seasons pass by so rapidly, that I am startled 
to think how much has happened since these events I 
was describing. Those two young people would in- 
sist on having their own way about their own affairs, 
notwithstanding the good lady, so justly called the 
Model, insisted that the age of twenty-five years was 
as early as any discreet young lady should think of 
incurring the responsibihties, etc., etc. Long before 
Iris had reached that age, she was the wife of a young 
Maryland engineer, directing some of the vast con- 
structions of his native State, — where he was grow- 
ing rich fast enough to be able to decline that famous 
Russian offer which would have made him a kind of 
nabob in a few years. Iris does not write verse often, 
nowadays, but she sometimes draws. The last sketch 
of hers I have seen in my Southern visits was of two 
children, a boy and girl, the youngest holding a silver 
goblet, like the one she held that evening when I — I 
was so struck with her statue-like beauty. If in the later 
summer months you find the grass marked with foot- 
steps around that grave on Copp's-Hill I told you of, 
and flowers scattered over it, you may be sure that 
Iris is here on her annual visit to the home of her 
childhood and that excellent lady whose only fault 
was, that Nature had written out her list of virtues on 
ruled paper, and forgotten to rub out the lines. 

One thing more I must mention. Being on the 
Common, last Sunday, I was attracted by the cheerful 
spectacle of a well-dressed and somewhat youthful 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 32 1 

papa wheeling a very elegant little carriage containing 
a stout baby. A buxom young lady watched them 
from one of the stone seats, with an interest which 
could be nothing less than maternal. I at once recog- 
nized my old friend, the young fellow whom we called 
John. He was delighted to see me, introduced me to 
" iMadam," and would have the lusty infant out of the 
carriage, and hold him up for me to look at. 

Now, then, — he said to the two-year-old, — show 
the gentleman how you hit from the shoulder. — 
Whereupon the little imp pushed his fat fist straight 
into my eye, to his father's intense satisfaction. 

Fust-rate little chap, — said the papa. — Chip of the 
old block. Regl'r little Johnny, you know. 

I was so much pleased to find the young fellow settled 
in life, and pushing about one of " them little articles " 
he had seemed to want so much, that I took my " pun- 
ishment" at the hands of the infant pugilist with great 
equanimity. — And how is the old boarding-house .? — 
I asked. 

A I, — he answered. — Painted and papered as 
good as new. Gahs in all the rooms up to the sky- 
parlors. Old woman's layin' up money, they say. 
Means to send Ben Franklin to college. — Just then 
the first bell rang for church, and my friend, who, I 
understand, has become a most exemplary member of 
society, said he must be off to get ready for meetin', 
and told the young one to ^' shake dada," which he did 
with his closed fist, in a somewhat menacing manner. 
And so the young man John, as we used to call him, 
took the pole of the miniature carriage, and pushed the 
small pugilist before him homewards, followed, in a 
somewhat leisurely way, by his pleasant-looking lady- 
companion, and I sent a sigh and a smile after him. 



322 THE PROFESSOR 

That evening, as soon as it was dark, I could not 
help going round by the old boarding-house. The 
" gahs " was lighted, but the curtains, or, more prop- 
erly, the painted shades, were not down. And so I 
stood there and looked in along the table where the 
boarders sat at the evening meal, — our old breakfast- 
table, which some of us feel as if we knew so well. 
There were new faces at it, but also old and familiar 
ones. — The landlady, in a wonderfully smart cap, look- 
ing young, comparatively speaking, and as if half the 
wrinkles had been ironed out of her forehead. — Her 
daughter, in rather dressy half-mourning, with a vast 
brooch of jet, got up, apparently, to match the gentle- 
man next her, who was in black costume and sandy 
hair, — the last rising straight from his forehead, like 
the marble flame one sometimes sees at the top of 
a funeral urn. — The Poor Relation, not in absolute 
black, but in a stuff with specks of white ; as much as 
to say, that, if there were any more Hirams left to 
sigh for her, there were pin-holes in the night of her 
despair, through which a ray of hope might find its way 
to an adorer. — Master Benjamin Franklin, grown 
taller of late, was in the act of splitting his face open 
with a wedge of pie, so that his features were seen to 
disadvantage for the moment. — The good old gen- 
tleman was sitting still and thoughtful. All at once he 
turned his face toward the window where I stood, and, 
just as if he had seen me, smiled his benignant smile. 
It was a recollection of some past pleasant moment ; 
but it fell upon me like the blessing of a father. 

I kissed my hand to them all, unseen as I stood in 
the outer darkness ; and as I turned and went my way, 
the table and all around it faded into the realm of twi- 
light shadows and of midnight dreams. 



AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. 323 

— And so my year's record is finished. The Pro- 
fessor has talked less than his predecessor, but he has 
heard and seen more. Thanks to all those friends 
who from time to time have sent their messages of 
kindly recognition and fellow-feeling ! Peace to all 
such as may have been vexed in spirit by any utter- 
ance these pages have repeated ! They will, doubtless, .^» 
forget for the moment the difference in the hues of n 
truth we look at through our human prisms, and join 
in singing (inwardly) this hymn to the Source of the 
light we all need to lead us, and the warmth which 
alone can make us all brothers. 



A SUN-DAY HYMN. 

Lord of all being! throned afar, 
Thy glory flames from sun and star; 
Centre and soul of every sphere, 
Yet to each loving heart how near ! 

Sun of our life, Thy quickening ray 
Sheds on our path the glow of day; 
Star of our hope. Thy softened light 
Cheers the long watches of the night. 

Our midnight is Thy smile withdrawn ; 
Our noontide is Thy gracious dawn ; 
Our rainbow arch Thy mercy's sign ; 
All, save the clouds of sin, are Thine ! 

Lord of all life, below, above. 

Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, 

Before Thy ever-blazing throne 

We ask no lustre of our own. 

Grant us Thy truth to make us free. 
And kindling hearts that burn for Thee, 
Till all Thy living altars claim 
One holy light, one heavenly flame I 



INDEX. 



A. 

Adams, Sam, 41, 42. 

Adjustment to what we look 
at, 158. 

America, the only place where 
man is full grown, 81. 

American, faith necessarily 
different from all others, 
221 ; soil wants the flavor of 
humanity, 248 ; the young, 
287 ; young, where his home 
is, 289; mind, water-proof- 
ing of, 299. 

A Mother's Secret (poem), 
128. 

Ark, the world's great, 222. 

Arm, left, model of, at sculp- 
tor's, 48. 

Art harmonizes all ages, 159. 

A Sun-day Hymn (poem), 323. 

Autocrat, the, 16, 18, 22, 34. 

Auto-da-fe, the last, 211. 

Axioms, the Professor's, about 
good folks, 122, 123. 

Aztecs and Fijians, reverend, 
116. 



B. 



Baby, American, sucks in free- 
dom with milk of nurse, 83. 



Baltimore, a civilized kind of 
village, 85 ; the gastronomic 
metropolis, 86. 

Baltimoreans, mention of two, 

Si- 
Battle of the Standard, 79. 

Beauty, index of a larger fact 
than wisdom, 31. 

Being, the great end of, i, 4. 

Ben Franklin, old, 15. 

Benjamin Franklin, 310. 

Benjamin Franklin (landlady's 
son), 21, 134, 316, 322. 

Birthday Poem, 78. 

Blondes, difference in their 
character, 225, 226. 

Blood-globules, number of, 59. 

Boarders, our two new ones, 
170. 

Boarding-house, the old, 321. 

Boarding-houses, young girls 
in, 227, 

Book of Iris, 228. 

Boston, great Macadamizing 
place, 15 ; its English char- 
acter, 45 ; the brain of the 
new world, 85 ; the grand 
emporium of modesty, 85 ; 
air, 253 ; danger of sneering 
at, 285. 

Boy of Windermere, 162. 

Boys, The (poem), 49. 

25 



326 



INDEX. 



Braham's forgetfulness, 24. 

Brain, running dry, 22; and 
heart, 294. 

Brain-women and heart- 
women, 150, 151. 

Bridget, the housemaid, 313. 

Bright, Mr., 82. 

Broad Church, the, 300 et seq. 

Buns, 'lection, 42. 

Burns Centenary, 26. 



C. 

Cabinet, the old, 92. 
Cadenus, captivating Stella 

and Vanessa, 90. 
Calef, Robert, his book 

burned, 8. 
Cavern under the road, sound 

from, 182. 
Channing, Dr., 82. 
Channing, Parson, 16. 
Check-book, 22. 
Chelsea Beach, gathering of 

animals on, 167. 
Chess-players, how nicely 

matched, 169. 
Children, scalded to death 

by drinking from teakettle 

spouts, 168; healthy and 

sickly, 196, 197. 
Choice of a physician, 145. 
Church of St. Polycarp, 214 et 

seq. ; of the Galileans, 217 et 

seq., 319. 
Civilization, its demetttia, 11. 
Clark,William,his epitaph, 310. 
Clergy, their part in civiliza- 
tion. 8. 



Clergyman, choice of, 146. 

Club-foot, 9. 

Coat, forcing one on a stranger, 

25- 

Coincidences of thoughts, 

57- 
Cold, damp hands, their effect, 

72. 
College dormitory, awful 

breach in walls of, 190. 
Combat, pugilistic, 282. 
Consciousness that persons 

are looking at us, 157. 
Conservative, 15. 
Consistency, 33. 
Copp's Hill, 3 ; burial-ground, 

310. 
Coughs, ungrateful things, 134. 
Counterparts, exact, cannot 

wait for, 290. 
Country-boys grown rich men, 

how to detect, 45. 
Creeds, medical, supposed 

enforcement of, 113 et seq. 
Critics, made from Authors' 

chips, 25. 
Crooked Footpath, The 

(poem), 103. 



Dance of death, 269. 

Dancing and bobbing, 21. 

Daniel Malcolm, his grave- 
stone, 3, 310. 

Dark, fancies in the, 274. 

Darwin, Dr., 83. 

Deaf-mute child, expression 
of, 232. 



INDEX. 



327 



Death-bed Literature, 295 et 

seq. 
Death, before expiring, 279; 

the white fruit called, 280; 

signs of, 308. 
Deity, the, in books and the 

universe, 10. 
Depolarization of sacred 

books, 118, 119, 128. 
De Sauty (poem), 26. 
" Devil's footsteps," 189. 
Diaphragm, moral effects of 

disease above and below, 298. 
Dictionary, Boston, 40 ; Rich- 
ardson's, 44; Dictionaries, 

war of, 44, 45. 
Dido, 62. 
Divinity-Student, 21, 80, no, 

132 et seq., 303 et seq. 
Dowdy ism, 138. 



E. 

Ear-rings, their suggestions, 

lOI. 

Earth, a great factory-wheel, 

109. 
Eau-de-vie de Dantzic, 31. 
Ectopia cordis, 262. 
Editorials, furnished by friends, 

170. 
Ehud, 121. 
Englishman, conversation with, 

35 ; thinks as he likes, 82. 
Epeolairy, 119. 
Epithets, worn out, 151. 
Equilibrium, we cannot rest in, 

279. 
Esther, 137. 



Facts, remote, collision of, 56. 
Faith, Ameiican, necessarily 

different from all others, 221 ; 

self-reliance, 94, 95. 
Family-resemblances, 194. 
Fancies frighten us more than 

beliefs, 164. 
Fashion, an attempt to realize 

art, 152. 
Fight of Harry and the butcher, 

52- 
Finnegass, Henry, Esq., 317. 
Fits of easy transmission, 24, 
Flambeaux of life, puffed out, 

54. 

Flamingo, the, 162. 

Flattery, acted belter than 
spoken, 138. 

Flournoy, J. J., his Disserta- 
tion, 4. 

Food of child, sweetened by 
Nature, 67. 

Forests, built of air, 67. 

Frederick, our, 17. 

Freethinker.a term of reproach 
in England, 83. 

Furniture, our ancient, 191. 



G. 

Gahs, the boarding-house 
lighted with, 321. 

Gayatri, the, 7. 

Genius, should marry char- 
acter, 291 ; as a fountain, 
293 ; has truthfulness as its 
essence, 294. 



328 



INDEX. 



Gentleman and Lady for man 
and woman, 147. 

Georges, our, 17. 

Gift enterprises, 192. 

Gingerbread-rabbit expres- 
sion, 20. 

Girl, beautiful young one, a 
terrible fact, 179. 

Good-breeding is surface- 
Christianity, 135. 

Gravel, clean, the best of ano- 
dynes, 269. 

Great secret, the, 180 et seq., 
183. 

Great teacher, the, loved to 
talk at meat, 32. 

Greek, the young, 287. 

Gulf-stream, the, 14. 

H. 

Hair of Professor's classmate, 
singular change in, 81. 

Hair-spring, pulling it out of 
M'atch, 43. 

Hancock House, 42. 

Haow, 44. 

Hating ourselves as we hate 
our neighbors, 276. 

Heart, atrophy of, women sub- 
ject to, 252; latent caloric 
from, 292. 

Hercules, rehearsing the part 
of, 91. 

Hereditary infirmities, 20. 

Heresy, the word little used, 
120. 

Heroism of fashionable people, 
142 et seq. 

" Hiram," 95, 97. 



Holyoke, Dr., 8. 

Homceopathy, 12. 

Hopkins, Sam, 15. 

Horses, friskiness of, in No- 
vember, 13. 

Hottentot acquaintance of the 
author, 81. 

House, on fire, how we know 
it, 160 ; the haunted, 164. 

Hue, his story of Chinese 
talkers, 30. 

Hymn of Trust (poem), 286. 



Ideas held antagonistically and 
spontaneously, 83. 

I love you, all that many 
women have to tell, 183. 

Index expurgatorius, 126, 

Indian, the, what he is, 248. 

Indians, a provisional race, 84. 

Infirmities, tendency to refer 
to them, 96. 

Insanity, most prevalent where 
there is most active intelli- 
gence, 221. 

Iris, 22, 54, 60 (story of), 89, 
97, loi, 140, 173, 174, 17s, 
180, 182, 185, 187, 212 ei seq., 
226 ei seq., 240, 253, 255, 256, 
270 ei seq., 276, 295, 306, 314, 
317 (?/ seq., 319, 320. 

Iris, her Book (poem), 230. 

J. 

Jeddo, moat at, 11. 

Jeremy Bentham's logic, 192. 

Jeunesse doree of New York, 87. 



INDEX. 



329 



" Jewelry," 21. 

John, young man called, 3, 13, 
18, 42, 80, 139, 168, 171 
et seq., 188, 208, 224, 275, 
317. 321. 

Jonathan Edwards, 116. 

Judicial character not capti- 
vating in females, 102. 

Justice, abstract, love of, 152. 

K. 

Kent, his affectation of blunt- 
ness, 30. 

Kiss, Alain Chartier's, 272. 

Knocking down, illusions re- 
specting, 282. 

Knowledge, leaking in and out 
of, 14. 

"Koh-i-noor," the, 16, 21, 42, 
80 et seq., 98, 174, 188, 282 et 
seq., 315. 



" Lamia," 166. 

Landlady, 99, 208, 209, 254, 

303. 322. 
Landlady's daughter, 21, 285, 

315- 322. 
Language, a solemn thing, 43. 
Law, barbarism in, 108. 
Lay-preacher, sermon by, 7. 
" L. B.," 9, 20. 

Leah, the witch of Essex, 315. 
Learned professions, the three, 

emerging from barbarism, 

107. 
Lecture-room, laws of, 118, 

125. 



Letter from a young girl, 251. 

Library, a mental chemist's 
shop, 25. 

Life, a bundle of what, i ; ad- 
justed for men, 252. 

Little Boston, 20, 173, 224. 

Little children to love one 
another, 319. 

Little Gentleman, the, 2, 9, 40, 
46, 47, 48, 79, 89 et seq., loo, 
loi, 120 et seq., 173, 185, i88, 
208, 209, 211, 220 et seq., 254, 
256, 261 et seq., 276 et seq., 
281, 285, 304. 

Lives cut rose-diamond-fash- 
ion the truest, 34. 

Living Skeleton, 134. 

Logic of young children, 213. 

Long trains in the street, 156 
et seq. 

Love, magnets, 162; signs of, 
289. 

Lucretia, 60. 

M. 

Madam Blaize, 235. 
Maelzel's automaton, 16, 
Magnolia, grows at Cape 

Ann, 247. 
Malcolm, Captain Daniel, 3. 
Man, his creation involved that 

of woman, 51. 
Manners, maxims concerning, 

141. 
Marriage, young man called 

John discourses of, 172. 
Martineau, Mr., 82. 
Marylanders, ripen well, 52. 
Mather, Cotton, 10, 116. 



330 



INDEX. 



Mather, Increase, burned 
Calefs book, 8. 

Medicine, plague that fell on 
it, II ; barbarism of, 107. 

Meet'n'-house, Bosting, 3. 

Mental movement in three 
parts, 37. 

Mental reactions with Hfe, 24. 

Midsummer (poem), 229. 

Milton's time of writing, 24. 

Mind forms neutral salts with 
certain elements, 25; com- 
pared to a circus-rider, 38. 

*' Model of all the Virtues," the, 
56, 71 et seg., 102, 136, 148, 
151, 318, 320. 

Mollusk, eggs of a, 260. 

Moral surgery, 116. 

Mother,old man's recollections 
of a young, 186; American, 
her apron-strings, what made 
of, 289. 

Mouse, what it is, 284. 

Mrs. Allen's Preparation, «^/ a 
dye, 81. 

Muggletonians, their odd way 
of dealing with people, 298. 

Musk-deer, not intimate with 
civet-cat, 291. 

Mysteries made of plain mat- 
ters, 260. 

N. 

Nature kind to her poorest 
children, 90; always apply- 
ing reagents to character, 91. 

Nervousness, 259. 

Ne' York, 86; its character- 
istics, 87. 



O. 

Ocean-cable literature, 26. 
Old Gentleman opposite, 21, 

88, 185, 281, 322. 
Old World, its soil thoroughly 

humanized, 248. 
Old-World and New-World 

civilization, 36. 
Old-World locks and canals, 

279. 
O'm, the Hindoo word, 7. 
Opening of the Piano, The 

(poem), 74. 
Opinions of a man worth more 

than his arguments, 118. 
Otis, Jim, 15. 
Outsiders and insiders, 303. 



P. 

Park-Street Church, 11. 
Parallax of truths, 7. 
Passions, the pale ones are 

fiercest, 271. 
Persons born too far north, 

245- 

Philadelphia, its character- 
istics, 86. 

Phillips and Denegri, 3. 

Philosophical habits, man of, 
his disadvantage, 272. 

Phrenological experiences, 198 
et seq. 

Phrenology, lecture on, 201. 

Pictures and casts in Pro- 
fessor's study, 29. 

Piranesi, 241. 

Poe, Edgar, talks against Bos- 



INDEX. 



331 



ton, 285 ; ends unfortunately, 
285. 

Poets, old before their time, 
243; in America, 248. 

Polarized words, 6. 

Poor Relation, 21, 93, 95, 124, 
132, 209, 275, 281, 317, 322. 

Portrait of the Witch of Essex, 
265. 

Portrait-painting, 192 et seg. 

Professor, the, a good listener, 
17 ; whether anything is left 
for him, 23 ; his theological 
talk, 105 et seq., 1 10 ; loves to 
go to church, 216; his fare- 
well address, 323 ; his belief 
when 5823 years old, 213. 

Professors cling to their chairs, 
14. 

Prophets of evil, 255. 

Protestantism, unpoetical side 
of, 181. 

Puddingstone, 259. 

Q. 

Quality, the, 136. 
Quarrelling among our literary 

people uncommon, 76. 
Questions addressed to the 

Professor, 207. 
Quintain, the, 122. 



Races, provisional, 84. 

Railroad village and the pyra- 
mids, 249. 

Red-crayon sketch of human- 
ity, Indian is, 84. 



Reformers, the, 205. 

Religion, our, must be Ameri- 
canized, 210. 

Reversed current in flow of 
thought and emotion, 149. 

Rich people, the most agree- 
able companions, 138; na- 
tures in fashionable society, 
152. 

Ring, the funeral, 9. 

Robinson of Leyden (poem), 
176. 

Rome and Reason, 125. 

" Rookery," the, 314, 

Rousseau, 249. 

S. 

Saint Anthony, the Reformer, 

205. 
Salem, 42. 
Savate, the, 54. 
Science, or knowledge, not the 

enemy of religion, 115, 
Schoolmistress, the, 172, 313. 
Sculpin, the, 2, 18. 
Sentiment, Christianity full of, 

306, 318. 
" Sentimental " religion, 126. 
Sewall, Chief Justice, 9, 10. 
Seward, Mr., 82. 
Shimei, Rab-shakeh, etc., 122, 

128. 
Soap, the Koh-i-noor's present 

of, 99. 
Soul, Nature's preparations for 

unearthing, 280, 
Sounds, in Little Gentleman's 

room, 163, 175, 224 ; strange, 

heard in night, 165. 



332 



INDEX. 



Spiritualism, 12 ; its effects, 
109. 

Spelling, Boston, 41. 

Stars-of-Bethlehem, the, 250, 
251. 

State House, Boston, 55, 285. 

Steam-tug, the little, 293. 

Stethoscope, 262. 

Store-room, the dark, 191. 

Strong, the, hate the weak, 19. 

St. Saba, Monastery of, 126. 

Suicide, laws of, 169. 

Sulphur and supplication, 112. 

"Summons for Sleepers," 119. 

Sun-day Hymn (poem), 323. 

Sunsets, Boston, 84. 

Surgeons, said to grow hard- 
hearted, 267. 

Surprise-parties, 76 et seq. 

T. 

Table, position of boarders at, 

21. 
Tadpoles, confined in the dark, 

245. 

Talent and genius, 243 et seq. 

Talk of pretty women, 31. 

Telescope, the Little Gentle- 
man's, 311. 

Temperance Song, the Pro- 
fessor's, 33. 

Temptation, the Professor's, 
271. 

Tennent, Rev. William, 181. 

Theologian, the heart makes 
the, 124. 

Theologians, liable to become 
hard-hearted, 267. 

Theology, barbarism in, 108. 



Thinking what we like, 119. 

Thomas and Jeremiah, 17. 

Thought, the ashes of think- 
ing, 24. 

Thoughts, flow in layers, 37; 
no space between consecu- 
tive, 38. 

Three-hilled city, the, against 
the seven-hilled city, 79. 

Three Maiden Sisters, book of 
the, 233. 

Time and thirst, 309. 

Transplantation necessary for 
some young natures, 246. 

Trick of the Boys at Com- 
mons, 58. 

Trigamy, 5. 

Tripod of life, 264. 

Trotting matches, cabalistic 
phraseology of, 168. 

Truth, bandaging and un- 
bandaging of, 39 ; the 
Ocean of, 94 ; is tough, 
III; fencing in of, 300; 
Smithate and Brownate of, 
301. 

Turtle, effect of live coal on 
his back, 29. 

Tutor, the old Latin, 60 et seq. 

Tutors die by starvation, 62. 

Two and two do not make four 
in hereditary descent, 69. 

Two Streams, The (poem), 
155. 

U. 

Underbred people tease the 

sick and dying, 146. 
Undertaker, the yoving, 316. 
Under the Violets (poem), 256. 



INDEX. 



333 



Vessels, touching each other, 
56. 

View, persons who cannot pro- 
nounce, 153. 

Virginia, 60. 

Voice, effect of, 45 ; woman's, 
sound resembling, 312. 

Vox humana stop, 165. 



W. 

Walrus, Neighbor, his flowers, 

251. 
Warren, Joe, 15. 
Washington societies, 88. 
Water of crystallization, books 

and pictures are to scholars, 

63. 
Wealth, its permanence, 153. 
"Webster's Unabridged," 40. 
What men women love, 161. 
What one would most dislike 

to tell, 92. 
Whiskey, its virtues, 134. 
Wicks, three, to lamp of life, 

263. 
Wilkes, John, 90. 
Will, the " Autocrat " on, 35. 



Wine at dinner, its theoretical 

use, 32. 
Wolves, stones on graves to 

keep them off, 266. 
Woman, the Messiah of a new 

Revelation, 127. 
Women can shape a husband 

out of anything, 159 ; have a 

sixth sense, 270; and girls 

we cannot reason with, 277. 
Word, a, the saddle of a 

thought, 39, 
Words, Boston, 41. 
Wordsworth, 162, 163. 
Worthylakes, 3; their triple 

gravestone, 310. 



Yankees are a kind of gypsies, 
250. 

Yorkshire groom, his discomfi- 
ture, 53. 

Young man John, 321. 

Young Marylander, 21, 45, 46, 
88, 188, 215, 277, 289, 295, 
319. 398. 

Young mothers, poisoning of, 
121. 

Youth and Age, tests between, 
57. 58. 



